Final Dance of the Fallen Dove
by Lemonfresh
Summary: Continuance of Evermore. Raven and Starfire have been together for some time, but when a shock from the past reawakens a sleeping evil, will they be able to weather the storm? Read to find out.
1. Prologue

"The Final Dance of the Fallen Dove"

A Fanfiction by Lemonfresh

Disclaimer: This story is about homosexual love, that of the yuri/femmeslash variety, so many people might find its content objectionable, especially the graphic description of sexual relations between the two that will come in the eighth chapter or so. I do not own the rights to Teen Titans or any of its characters, and do not claim to be using any of these things with the consent or approval of anyone who does own their rights. I also do not own the rights to any of the songs that will begin each chapter, they are instead owned by the individual bands who will be credited at the end of the lyrical listing.  
Author's Notes: First things first, I'm going to warn everyone right now that this piece of fiction is going to be a shade darker than even Evermore, so it would be best if you prepared yourself for a bumpy ride. If I do this right, there are going to be times that are so horribly sad that you will honestly want to just cry your eyes out and stop. But don't, just as in life, the thing you must absolutely never, ever do is stop. With that, read on, and enjoy the finish to the story that Evermore began.  
P.S. for the FF.N readers - Since these guys apparently aren't fans of you using song lyrics, even with proper attribution, the names of the chapters are going to fall a little flat. A little trick I took from a writer I rather like, naming the chapters after songs appropriate to them and then posting the lyrics at the beginning. Obviously, though, this ain't going to work, so I'm instead just going to change the chapter names to include the Artist, that way you can find the lyrics on your own.

**Prologue**

**Iris - Goo Goo Dolls**

Two months have passed since Starfire and Raven's relationship became official. At first, Beast Boy and Cyborg were rather surprised at the announcement, so much so that even Beast Boy couldn't come up with a comment or quip. Over time, they both became accustomed to it, much as Robin already had. Although "fly on the wall" Beast Boy had to be crushed a few times before he learned the meaning of "private time." Things were shook up considerably by the return of, and subsequent betrayal by, Terra, but Starfire and Raven's relationship only made weathering the tragedy easier, and even provided a focal point of strength and determination for the rest of the team. After Terra's sacrifice and Slade's defeat, things returned to relative normalcy, for a time, and the two young lovers continued dating, growing closer with each and every one. But, when a shock from the past reawakens a sleeping evil, what will become of them?

This is that story.

* * *

It was a weapon formed of Raven's black, telekinetic energies. Straight-bladed, rather than curved, for greater utility and usability, and also thin, to make it lighter and faster, even though the ethereal stuff it was made of weighed nothing at all in her hand. It had a simple cross guard that extended two inches out to each side from the blade, enough to allow it to effectively block attacks without actually hindering the wielder. A simple, straight hilt beneath that, lacking anything even resembling a true pommel. It was an utterly utilitarian device, made specifically to kill and nothing else, devoid of any frills or ornamentation, totaling the same length as Raven's arm. 

It cut through the air with barely a sound, despite its lightning speed, and due to its nature as a manifestation, it fit perfectly in Raven's grip, as it if were meant to be in her hand. She swung again in a cross-cut pattern, and marveled at the perfection of its adaptation to her needs. With the sword, she was strong, she truly had what she needed to protect that which she cared about. Before that day, that fight with Anbu, she could not recall ever having held a sword of any kind before, and yet the use of such a weapon was almost instinctual to her. It was a peculiarity, but one that she did not complain about. She swung yet again, dipping her blade into a fluid, s-shaped slash that would have killed an unguarded opponent several times over, without remorse or mercy.

As she watched the weapon slide through the strike pattern, Raven briefly considered printing the image of her raven shadow on the blade or cross-guard of the sword, but the idea was quickly thrown out. Raven had never been one for vanity, and the sword itself could attest to many of her other virtues and values by association, due to its nature as a manifestation of her will.

"Raven, please hurry, we are going to be late!" But it was also notably a weapon, a tool of combat and combat alone, making its assessment of her personality only viable in the context of combat.

"Coming, Starfire!" Raven called as she dismissed the sword, before rushing to her closet, realizing that she had spent far too long considering her manifested weapon, and had not yet changed.

* * *

The restaurant was quite "ritzy," as most would call it, almost too much so for Raven's tastes, but she had not been able to come up with a much better place to have a romantic dinner. Certainly, a waffle house just wouldn't do, not for Starfire. Still, it was obvious that neither of them was entirely comfortable in their seats, nor with the rich ornamentation of the small, intimate room. It was lit by candelabra scattered about the room, hung in delicate scones high on the wall, and a beautiful, crystal chandelier that flew from the ceiling, with soft, on-site piano music drifting through the air.

It gave the place a wonderful atmosphere, but it was that very thing that upset the two, halfway. Despite being together, there was still nervousness at their place in the public eye, even after the months since they had first come together. Sometimes they felt as though everyone that saw them knew, and were judging them because of it. The oppressive pall of gloom that fell over the pair as they stewed in their own insecurities and worries was lifted slightly, though, as the tuxedo-clad waiter approached.

"Hello, I am Jean, and I will be your waiter tonight." He handed them a pair of menus and continued seamlessly. "Our appetizer tonight is a delicious stewed duck with a side of fresh picked greens." Even as he spoke to them, the man did not open so much as one eye, much less look at Raven and Starfire. "Our special is a seared and sliced side of fine filet mignon beef smothered in a creamy, freshly-made mushroom sauce, and accompanied by a delicate helping of garlic mashed potatoes." His speech was neatly clipped, giving off the feeling that he did not really care to be doing what he was. "What will you be having?" The girls looked to one another, both struck by a bout of nervousness as they were put on the spot.

"Umm . . . I'll have the special . . ." Starfire looked incredulously at the menu, not recognizing anything even vaguely familiar in the many dishes listed on it.

"I will . . . have that as well . . . with some mustard, please?" The waiter did not even appear to dignify Starfire's question with an answer, instead simply taking their menus and then saying,

"Excellent choice." And with that terse, and far from truly polite, answer, he left them.

"He was very . . . nice." Starfire said lamely, trying to keep levity in the situation, but Raven only laid a level look on the Tamaranian.

"No, I don't think he was." Their food arrived in not too long and they ate in silence.

Despite the fact that it was more than flavorful and quite well-prepared, they simply couldn't enjoy it with the dark, seething energy that permeated the establishment, hanging over them. So, with a semi-loud slam of her hands on the table, Raven simply up and left, her powers leaving a small fold of bills on the table even as she went. Perplexed, Starfire followed after a moment's hesitation, and caught up with her lover just outside.

"Raven, what is wrong?" She asked, placing a hand on the dark magus' shoulder.

"Everything." Raven answered as she turned about to face the other girl, frustration plainly evident in her features. "This is a date, we're supposed to be enjoying ourselves, _you're_ supposed to be enjoying yourself." She pointed accusingly back at the restaurant. "But we couldn't enjoy ourselves in there because we could feel it. They hated us, Starfire." The Tamaranian only looked at Raven in silence for a few heart beats, and then gently hugged the dark heroine, laying her head against Raven's chest.

"What upsets me far more than that, is you being like this, Raven." She shifted just a bit to bring herself closer to the violet-haired mage. "You must not let it get to you like this, it makes you bitter, and it hurts me when you are like that." Raven did not answer for a time, simply breathing as Starfire clutched herself tightly against her.

Then, lovingly, she slipped a hand up to hold the alien girl's head, easily lacing her fingers in Star's soft, crimson hair as she did so.

"Alright, you win." A kiss was softly lain atop the Tamaranian's head. "But I'm not going to let this date end in failure, so where should we go next?"

"Perhaps to some form of motion picture?"

"Alright then, let's do that."

* * *

The movie theater was dark, as was normal custom while a movie played, and also surprisingly devoid of patrons, which meant that Starfire and Raven could relax, and truly enjoy themselves. They held hands even as they sat apart, as they had the whole row to themselves, even the ones just before and behind them. The movie was just a little slow and boring, but still quite romantic, although neither of those facts really mattered to Raven. She wasn't there for the movie, she was there for Starfire. With that thought, she turned her gaze from the flickering screen to lay her eyes on the Tamaranian girl beside her.

Starfire was dazzling, as always, her long, crimson hair trailing out behind her, her angular yet soft features that touched pleasantly on the eye; even more so as the alien girl stared with rapt attention at the events unfolding on the screen, her emotional investment obvious; soft, joyous voice, silky, just slightly moistened lips . . . Raven blinked and shook her head, only then realizing that her admiring reverie had left her leaning in to kiss the other girl. She blushed, and shifted back into a more normal sitting position in her seat, thankful that Starfire was paying too much attention to the movie to notice her aborted attempt at a lip lock.

To the dark magus' surprise, Starfire turned to her at that exact moment and spoke.

"Is this not a wonderfully romantic motion picture, Raven?" She looked to the screen again and smiled widely. "It makes me so very happy!" Raven blinked, and looked at the screen again.

"Oh Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou, Romeo?"

"Uhhh . . . Starfire . . ." Raven began, a little worried about having to break the bad news to her lover.

* * *

It had taken a fairly long time to get Starfire to stop bawling over the tragic end of their movie, but after that was done, Raven managed to convince the saddened alien to come to a fair with her. That helped immensely. The flashing lights of a hundred different games and rides lit upon Starfire's face, and it was as if she'd been charged with a thousand volts of electricity. She wanted to go everywhere and do everything all at once, and Raven could barely keep up.

They rode the Ferris Wheel, going up and down, around and around, in a way that vaguely reminded Raven of clothing tumbling in a dryer. But she couldn't fault it, because of the way that the moon shined down on the car; and by extension, Raven and Starfire inside of it; at the zenith of the rotation, making her and her lover beside her glow with a pale luminescence.

They rode the roaring roller coaster, an exhilarating experience, if nothing else, which made Starfire laugh with glee and Raven smirk in amusement as everyone else in the car screamed in terror while the car plummeted down the sloped track.

Prizes were won, by Starfire and Raven both, in many of the games, a shadowy competition fomenting between them to see who could win the better prize for the other. Starfire almost won with a large, stuffed chicken, the irony of the gift not lost on Raven, but the dark magus managed a bit of selected "luck" when the lotto balls mysteriously came up her ticket number, winning her a giant plush bear, which also won her the competition and its prize, a kiss from Starfire.

"I am sorry, that I could not provide you with a prize other than this, something that you can have any time that you want., Raven." Starfire commented afterwards, just a little bit upset with herself for her lack of creativity.

Raven only smiled.

"Your kisses are worth more to me than gold, so I'm happy to have every little one I can get." Before Starfire could react, the mischievous little Raven stole another one, a quick peck that lasted but a second. "So I'm greedy, sue me." She said quietly, smirking, before she pulled Starfire into yet another, savoring every last second that she could have the alien's girl's lips against hers.

* * *

The moon was even higher in the sky then, almost right at the very top of the sky. It cast the beach and its soft, wet sand in a gentle, silver light, while the waters of the bay shimmered and sparkled with its reflection. The two, walking barefoot across its length, basked in the beauty of it all, for the most part in silence. Until Starfire spoke.

"Perhaps we could go for a swim, Raven?" She looked hard out into the darkness of the quiet night. "I do not believe there to be any boats out at this hour, so it will not be necessary for you to break your arm again." The alien commented after, and Raven simply looked at her with a cold, emotionless expression on her face.

"That isn't funny, Starfire." The Tamaranian, taken aback by her love's seriousness, let worry sink into her expression.

"It is not?" She asked, perplexed.

Raven smiled then, deviously.

"No, but this is." In that instant, both of them ended up in the water, Starfire at first screaming in surprise, but that quickly changed to glee as the water splashed all around them.

They wrestled for a time, bubbles filling the water about them almost completely, enjoying themselves to almost no end, but finally they returned to the surface.

"That was a very under-handed trick, Raven." Starfire whispered, as the two floated placidly on the surface, quietly catching their breath.

"You don't want me to do it ever again, then?" Raven asked wryly, looking sidelong at the alien girl.

"Did I say something to that effect?" Starfire asked, smiling, and Raven returned the expression easily.

They swam after that point, enjoying the cold embrace of the waters, and not even caring about the horrors it was probably inflicting on their dresses. They weren't wearing the ones they'd worn to Brendan and Sophia's wedding, so it was no big deal. They chatted off and on, the off points generally occurring when one took a dive under the surface, as they continued their swim.

"I think it went well, once we got out of that horrid restaurant."

"I agree, though I cannot decide whether the movie or the fair was more enjoyable."

"Well, the movie did end tragically . . . but there was that disgusting, prehistoric mustard you got a hold of at the fair."

"Please, do not remind me, the very thought makes my stomach ill."

"You know what, though?" Raven asked, just before dipping beneath the surface, cutting off Starfire's response.

A moment afterwards, she fairly appeared before Star, slipping her arms about the other girl's shoulders before pulling them close.

"I think this was the best of all." Starfire smiled in kind to Raven's, before giggling as the dark magus nuzzled her.

"You are right, Raven, this is the best."

* * *

They had separated some time back in the hall, Starfire going off to drop her things off in her own room, while Raven went ahead to hers. Starfire knew that Raven always felt a little badly when they had to do that, because it reminded her that Starfire had still not moved from her own room into Raven's, she could see it in her love's eyes when they parted. But Starfire dreaded the conflict that would occur when she and Raven attempted to integrate the single space of her room into partially each of theirs, and to an extent, didn't want to lose her own room that was just hers alone. Guilt was the emotion that rose inside of her at that thought, that there were some things that she simply didn't want to share with Raven, no matter how much she loved the cloaked-heroine.

Regardless, she slipped through the halls at a quiet hover, trying to avoid waking the others, partially out of courtesy, and partially because her still damp, silken dress left little to the imagination of the viewer. As she entered her room, though, she was surprised to find that it was not cast in total darkness, as she had expected. Instead, it was lit periodically by bursts of red light which came on and off like clockwork. The bursts emanated from the top drawer of the night stand beside her bed, and that could mean only one thing: a message from Blackfire.

Normally such a thing would cause joy to rise in the girl's heart, because of how few and far between the communications between herself and her estranged sister were. But, because of what had happened when Blackfire had finally come to visit her on her adoptive home, Starfire had a terrible feeling of foreboding, that nothing good would come of the message. Tentatively, she drew the drawer open, and pulled out the small, almost archaic-looking device, tripping a switch on the side with her thumb to bring up the message.

The words that appeared on the screen then shattered her heart.

"No." Starfire whispered mournfully, before her legs gave way beneath her, and she slumped to the floor beside her bed. "No . . ."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Pardon Me** **- Incubus**

It was quite an odd sight, Starfire floating regularly in and out of her room, each time with a new load of objects, mostly extra uniforms, but there were a few other personal belongings among the bunches. For a time, after discovering her, the other Titans had simply stood in silence watching, but finally Robin spoke up.

"Umm . . . what are you doing, Starfire?" At the query, the Tamaranian paused in her regular flight, and turned to face her team mates completely.

Notably, though, she could not bring herself to look at Raven, just as the dark magus couldn't bear to do anything more than look at the floor beneath Starfire's floating feet. The alien girl had not gone to Raven's room the night before, instead sleeping in her own bed, alone.

"I am packing my things, to leave for Tamaran." She said quietly, a false smile on her face.

Robin, still perplexed, followed almost immediately with,

"why?" A pang ripped its way through the expression on the alien girl's face, drawing it tight on her bones and even more obviously false, so much so that even Beast Boy knew something was wrong.

"I am to be married, and will not be returning." Shock rippled through the assembled group, especially Raven, who fairly seethed with barely constrained, explosive power.

When no one said anything for a time afterwards, Starfire sullenly returned to transporting her clothing. But it was only a few moments later that Raven almost stumbled into Starfire's room, her face hidden by her hanging bangs as she seemingly stared at the floor beneath her feet. Starfire simply stopped, letting Raven walk right up to her, her features twisting and contorting with her own strong emotions, barely held in check by her wish to not upset the others anymore than necessary.

"Why?" Raven choked out, raising her head to look Starfire in the eyes, pain obvious in the unusual wetness of her own violet orbs, as well as the way that they almost seemed to quiver in the light.

Before the Tamaranian could even formulate her answer to the question, though, anger and accusation arose in the dark magus' eyes.

"Was I just something to do while you were away from _him_?" She nearly growled as she spoke, and Starfire shrank from the nearly palpable aura of malice that surrounded Raven at that moment.

"No!" She cried, horrified. "My marriage was decreed by the Grand Ruler of Tamaran, I have never met him, I do not even know his name!" At the realization of what Star said, but far more the abject terror that the alien girl was displaying then, Raven cooled her anger.

"I'm sorry, Starfire." She murmured, ashamed of herself, and Starfire cautiously came to stand at her full height again, no longer pulling away from Raven.

"You are forgiven, Raven, you did not know." Silence reigned between the two for the moments afterwards, as Raven silently berated herself for her foolish jealousy.

Eventually, though, the gravity of the situation returned her focus to the outer world.

"Then why do it, you don't have t- . . ." Starfire cut Raven off, knowing what the violet-haired mage was going to say.

"Yes, I do." Her inner turmoil caused by the conflict of loyalties between two things very dear to her showed through in Starfire's emerald on lime green eyes, lidded and drawn. "The Grand Ruler has decreed it, I must obey." Raven's jaw clenched as she almost instantly developed an immense _dislike_ for the potentate that was destroying her happiness with little more than a few words.

"Then I'll come with you and **convince** that bastar- . . ." Again, Starfire did not let her love finish.

"Please, I do not want you to do anything such as that, the Grand Ruler is our Ruler, regardless of anything done, whether it is perceived just or unjust." The alien's skin grew just slightly pallid, as she swallowed before continuing. "It does not matter, though, because it was also decreed that I must come alone, unescorted." She looked down to the ground, unable to continue holding Raven's eye as she voiced the final point. "Any outsiders that accompany me will be . . . executed." Raven's jaw fairly fell to the very floor at Starfire's pronouncement.

"What!"

"I am sorry, but I must finish packing, the journey will take a long time, and I was not given long to dawdle before leaving." The Tamaranian breezed past Raven, almost knocking over the absolutely bewildered girl with just the brush of her arm as she passed.

The dark magus could honestly not even comprehend what was going on, it made no sense at all. It was like some kind of terrible nightmare, as she was being forced to watch her entire relationship with Starfire, which she'd actually dared to hope would last forever, shattered before her very eyes. She desperately wanted to cry, but somehow, the tears just refused to come to her. Just before Starfire would have slipped out of the room, she paused in the door frame.

"I think that it would be best if you forgot about me, Raven." Then Star stepped out of the room and into the hall, the door sliding shut behind her, cutting off the outside source of light and throwing the unlit room into total darkness.

"No." The denial cut through the cloying, smothering blackness, and a moment later a shape rose up in it. Darker than the darkest night, it stood out among the shadows as if it were not dark at all, as starkly as if the sun itself lay in that very room. And then Raven was gone from the room.

* * *

"So, do you want us to come with you?" Robin asked, he and the other boys having been waiting outside of Starfire's room patiently and respectfully.

But, just as with Raven, Starfire didn't stop, couldn't stop, so she went right past them. Because she knew that if she stopped now, she wouldn't be able to go again, and that would mean betraying Tamaran.

"Starfire!" Robin nearly yelled, knowing something had to be deathly wrong, if Starfire was giving her friends the cold shoulder.

She still didn't stop, simply said, without looking back.

"You cannot come with me, you will be killed if you do." No one could stop her, not after something such as that had been said.

* * *

She wasn't going to let it happen, not as long as she still had the strength to fight. Raven wasn't just going to timidly shrug away the love she'd worked so hard to build with Starfire, not then, not ever. And so she was to be found sneaking about the hanger bay of the tower after night had fallen over the city. She needed to scrounge up some supplies and spare parts, because though Cyborg had put the Titans through an extensive training program; both for the ship when it was still a submersible, and another when it was converted into an inter-stellar transport; there was still a chance that something could happen, and dying of starvation after being marooned on an alien planet sounded like a very ignoble and undesirable way to die. 

Besides, if she died like that, the fact that she hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye to Starfire would haunt her to the very end of the spiraling eternities. And even more so, the dark heroine was convinced; after a measure of soul searching; that her actions were not being produced entirely by selfish drives: Something about the whole thing just stank, and she wouldn't be at ease until she was sure Starfire was alright. After collecting all the necessary items, Raven quietly slipped across the room and keyed up the computer console. A quick diagnostic found the ship and all its parts to be in perfect working order, and all the indicators showed green; fuel supply at maximum capacity, weapons calibrated and charged, vital fluids freshly changed.

In short, everything was perfect. Next, her fingers played across the touch pad of the console, calling up the disengage sequence for her wing of the T-Ship. Not only could the whole T-Ship not be effectively operated by just one individual, but it was far more likely that the other Titans would notice the launch of; or. at least, the loss of; the entire ship. They were in town at the moment, drowning their sorrows in ice cream at the Soda shop, on Beast Boy's suggestion, so even if they did notice her absence, she'd at least have a head start on them. Besides, thanks to Cyborg's Launch Catapult, Raven didn't need the gigantic booster engines of the whole ship to reach Escape Velocity, which would make her launch far less conspicuous.

After it's completion, Raven had asked Cyborg why he hadn't gotten rid of the gargantuan rockets, since they were no longer necessary, and in typical fashion, he had replied,

"why would I ever get rid of something this **powerful**?"

"Boys with toys . . ." Raven muttered disdainfully as she programmed in another sequence, getting the mechanical lifting arm to remove her wing from the rest of the T-Ship and transport it to the catapult.

"If you keep talking to yourself, people are going to think you're crazy." Raven spun about, her now familiar sword coming instinctively to her grasp, silently cursing her foolish preoccupation with the trivial events of the past.

It turned out to be Robin that had come up behind her, arms crossed over his chest, and eyes unreadable behind his trademark mask.

"So, what are you up to?" He asked quietly, almost conversationally.

The dark magus glared at the boy wonder, just daring him to try to pretend as though he didn't know, and then let her sword vanish from her grip. When his expression remained unchanged, nor did he offer anything verbally, Raven simply turned her back to him, going back to the console.

"You shouldn't go after her." He commented just as she was about to put fingertips to the touch-sensitive screen, stopping her dead in her tracks.

Very slowly, and very deliberately, Raven pulled her arms back and away from the computer, and took a deep, calming breath. Then she turned on Robin, rage simmering just below the surface of her eyes, as she barely managed to remind herself that Robin was not an enemy.

"I'm going and I won't let you stop me." Robin raised his hands, open palms facing outwards, in a placating gesture.

"I don't plan on trying to, I just want to talk to you."

"There's nothing to talk about." Raven replied almost immediately, but even before she could pull her planned about face, Robin spoke again.

"She has to do this for her people, you know, I'm sure there's a reason for it."

"I don't care, **I** love her!" Raven yelled at the boy wonder, her anger boiling over at the insinuation that there could possibly be a reason to justify her losing Star.

"Now you're just being selfish, acting like your needs are paramount to anyone else's." Raven's cheeks burned with color at Robin's chastising words, and she growled softly in indignation.

"I will not let her go, not after everything I went through to get her, not after I nearly **died** to be with her." She was resolute, the ring of iron determination in her voice, and Robin smiled just faintly.

"In that case, all I can say is that you'd better remember that you said that, and never forget it, because I'm going to hold you to it." Raven blinked in surprise, and Robin smirked as Raven's expression gave away that emotion. "I love her too, and even if I can only be a brother to her, I'm still going to be the best damn brother I can be." Raven stared for just a moment, but then nodded, understanding.

"Then you're going to let me go?"

"Yup."

"And you and the others won't be coming?" Robin paused for a moment, simply staring hard at Raven, expression darkened just a shade.

"It's against my better judgement, but yes, I'm going to let you go alone." Raven was gladdened that Robin appeared to understand her feelings, because she had feared so much that she would have to fight him over who would save Starfire, or some such other ridiculous thing.

"Alright, I'm going to go now, then, while Beast Boy and Cyborg are still out." Raven went to the console again, keying up the final launch sequence that readied the catapult.

As soon as the hum of electricity flowing through systems filled the air, Raven took off toward her ship, though she stopped about halfway.

"Thank you, Robin." She said over her shoulder, voice raised just enough to be caught over the building harmonics, and Robin nodded.

"No problem." It was only a few more moments before Raven was inside of her wing, strapped in and ready for launch, and an even shorter time later, she was gone, blasting through the launch tube at an exponentially increasing speed, due to the magnetic acceleration effect built into it.

"Can we go back to the Soda Shop now?" Beast Boy asked, as he came out from the shadows off to the side of the room, looking annoyed and indignant. "I didn't even get to finish the malt I _did_ get to order!"

"BB, shut up." Cyborg said easily as he slipped out from his unseen position as well, coming up to stand beside Robin just as Beast Boy did, though he wasn't sulking nearly as much as the green-skinned shape shifter. "So, are we going to go after her?" He asked, looking to the boy wonder.

At length, Robin responded, obviously after very careful consideration.

"No, this is something she needs to do herself, and it'll only complicate matters if we're there." Beast Boy perked up at the news, smiling his wide, toothy smile.

"Does that mean that we can go back to the shop _now_?" Both Cyborg and Robin looked to the expectant Titan, and shook their heads, letting loose twins sighs.

Then they simply walked off, leaving Beast Boy behind, dumbfounded.

"Well, what about it, guys?" He looked after them, even as they disappeared into the lifts. "Guys?"

* * *

It had been a long and lonely journey. Through it, Starfire had wished far too often that her friends could be there to talk to her, or that her love could be there to hold her and tell her everything was alright. But that could not happen anymore, not ever again. Slowly, she descended through the atmosphere of Tamaran, and watched as its terra firma rose up towards her. Despondently, she wished that such was not just an optical illusion, that the earth would simply climb up to her and engulf her in its cold embrace, ending her life with a burial that, due to her emotional state, would not be as premature as one would think. Such a thought fairly broadsided Starfire's psyche, as she had never before been one to think of . . . suicide, ultimately. She wondered if earth, or maybe love, had changed her so much. 

Lightly, she landed on the platform designated for ships and arriving Tamaranians to land on, and realized that there was a figure already waiting for her. He was a giant of a man, with a ragged scar ripped down his face and through one sickly green eye, misted over and obviously now useless from the wound. His bearing revealed him for a warrior, tall and proud, despite his fairly venerable age, and the aura of menace he radiated was unmistakable. Unafraid, Starfire approached him, stepping up to right before him, eyes locked with his. Even as the shouted words came forth from her lips and his, filled with seeming rage, the elder lunged at Starfire, and huge, callused fingers turned out to be more than nimble enough for tickling.

Starfire giggled madly, hysterically as the old warrior's touch found every single place on her body sensitive to such play, the knowledge of which had been gained over the years of caring for a young, Tamaranian princess. Eventually, Star could not take any more without embarrassing herself in one way or another, and pulled away from the giant man, ending the game.

"It is wonderful to see you again after so long, Galfore." Starfire said, once her voice was released from the clutches of lingering laughs and giggles.

"And I, you, Princess Starfire." Easily, the great warrior bent on one knee before the far smaller child in fealty, and she shook her head.

"There is no need for such formality, Knorfka, everything in the royal succession is taken care of as always, is it not?" Starfire could not see Galfore's face, as his head was bent low in supplication, and so when he rumbled,

"yes, it is," she thought nothing of it.

With a certain amount of prodding, Starfire convinced Galfore to take her around the castle, as it had been so long since she had been home, to see the changes made to it in her absence. She wished to see the sights, yes, but deep down she knew that what se really wanted to do was bury her feelings for Raven and the others under a veneer of wonder at coming to her home again. After all, she was never going to see them again, and thus needed to get thoughts and memories of them out of her mind as soon as possible.

"Have matters worsened since I received my missive?" Starfire asked suddenly, hoping to remind herself of the importance of her duty, as her heart wrenched in her chest at the thought of forgetting her friends.

When Galfore stared blankly at Starfire, after she voiced her question, it set off alarm bells in the back of the alien girl's mind.

"The Drenthax fleet?" She asked, and recognition came to the warrior's one working eye with an almost literal flash.

"Yes, of course, things are going terribly, I am sorry to say." Galfore's warrior nature showed through in his speech often, and never more so than then, as he had absolutely no skill for lying at all, especially to Starfire.

"What is wrong?" She asked plainly, blowing right through his smokescreen of falsehood, and leaving him utterly defenseless.

He sighed as his shoulder slumped deeply in defeat and guilt.

"Much has changed since you left." That said, he simply lead on, heading toward the Great Feasting Hall, his huge form shrinking as it moved further and further into the soaring architecture.

She knew something was wrong, the very air screamed that fact to Starfire as it crowded in around her oppressively. But, even with that knowledge, the alien princess knew that there was nothing she could do, beyond simply following through with her duty. She had no allies, no friends, to turn to this time. That didn't mean that she was just going to run away crying, though, Starfire was a strong girl, and when it came to protecting Tamaran, she was determined. In flight, she caught up to Galfore quickly, but said nothing once she did, nor did Galfore give any verbal indication that he realized she was once again near him. He simply continued on to their destination, the hall, and once they arrived, Starfire was astonished by what she found awaiting her.

A feast beyond description was laid out upon the grand table, leaving virtually no room at all on its surface for anything more than what was already, the weight of it all so immense that it actually bowed the top at the center, where there were no supports. Then again, that didn't really matter, she supposed, since every last dish and delicacy that could be made with Tamaranian foodstuffs lay on it already, along with several Starfire had never before seen in her life. Pickled Zorka Berry Jellies, Fried Zorlanian Wasp Mothers, Kreskorzic Razor Boar Roasts, Elegore Sole Filets, everything was there, from the most humble of Tamaranian dishes, Lerchizish Porridge, to the most absolutely extravagant of them all, the Glaxchician Crystalline Sorume Shiren. The last of which was only very rarely prepared, as the strain of watching their masterpiece destroyed and devoured almost always proved too much for the chef, pushing them to ritual suicide.

Despite all of the table manners drilled into her by her stay on earth, Starfire fairly drooled a waterfall at just the thought of eating any one of the delicacies there. But, as she neared her seat at the great expanse of the table, Starfire noted with more than a little trepidation that her kin looked disturbingly somber, especially considering that the marriage of their princess, even with the circumstances, should have been a happy, joyous event.

"Let us eat." A number of huge axes came out and down, monstrous strength cleaving several parts of the table nearly in half, and rendering the food piled upon it into nothing more than a slurry-like mess of slop.

As she dove towards her desired portion of the mess, Starfire was fairly certain that she heard a cry of agony ring out from the side of the room, where the many chefs that had prepared the meal were situated to watch its consumption, but she paid little heed to it, as she was quite famished from her flight back home. Star drove into the meal like a beast possessed, devouring everything she could get her hands on and savoring the sweet taste of traditional Tamaranian cooking eaten as it was meant to be eaten, and even fought off several of her brothers and sisters in order to maintain her choice position.

But, when the threktars thundered our their sharp tones, the whole of the feast froze, Starfire wiping some green goo from her face as she looked up to the Hall entrance. Because, as all Tamaranians knew, the roar of the threktars always announced the coming of the Grand Ruler. The figure descended in a swirl of servants and courtiers and, before Starfire even truly saw anything of its person, spoke.

"Seize her." Arms were all about the princess, and she was bound in an instant, leaving her on her back on the table.

Unseen, she heard the Grand Ruler approach, foot steps clipping softly on the stone floor, and a moment later found a face looking down upon her, features hidden by the lighting directly overhead.

"And now, you are mine." Then the face vanished, the swirl of cloth in the air indicating that the Ruler was walking away quickly, cape trailing behind. "Dress her appropriately to her new station, and then bring her to my throne." Starfire was hefted to her feet, and as her eyes once again lay before her, the sight she saw shook her deeply, a vision of glossy black hair swishing through the air as the sinuous movements of the body it was attached to shifted it about.

"Blackfire!" The figure stopped in its advance out of the room, and a moment later, harsh, haughty laughter filled the air.

"Welcome home," the sultry voice rang out, before the elder princess turned about to face Starfire. "Sister, _dear_." She smiled viciously after speaking, raising one glowing hand high. "And goodnight!" In a brilliant, searing flash of purple, Starfire's world went dark.

* * *

Starfire's world was a strange one indeed, Raven had guessed that much as soon as she had first seen it from the distance, looking like a giant jawbreaker hanging in the blackness. Once she descended within the clear atmosphere, she realized this to be even more true, as endless plains of chalky white nothingness stretched out beneath her in almost every direction, only a few small mountains dotting that endless landscape. On the plus side, though, it made the citadel of the Tamaranian Royalty all the easier to find, even without the tracking signal Starfire's Titan Communicator was putting off. Raven thanked her lucky stars that her love hadn't thought to remove that item before leaving, because otherwise it would have taken far longer to find Starfire. Raven would have managed even if that weren't the case, but this way gave her a higher chance of getting there before something terrible happened. 

She landed carefully and quietly on the only pad outstretched from the tower, which was thankfully unguarded. Raven was willing to do anything and everything necessary to get Starfire back, but she doubted that murdering Starfire's people, regardless of the reason, would go over well with the alien girl. Stealthily, she slipped inside the fortress, and after a moment's concentration, the shadows became as one with her. It was not true invisibility, as a figure of shadow stuff stood out glaringly in bright light, but as long as she kept to the darkness at the sides of the halls . . .

It was slow going, due to the necessity of having to stay scrunched up against the walls of each hallway, but this wasn't an entirely bad thing for Raven, as the lack of patrolling guards meant that she had time to think and contemplate. What Robin had told her back in the hanger was not sitting well at all, mainly because there was a very real possibility that it was true. Starfire had told Raven the whole of her story not long after they came together, that she was a princess of Tamaran, second in line for succession to the throne, and so she knew that a politically arranged marriage to placate some rampaging warlord or such was a reality Starfire had to worry about. As a show of good faith, Raven had revealed her own secret, that she was . . .

The dark magus froze as the sound of heavy footsteps clomping down the hall, quickly sucking in a breath and her stomach as she pulled up against the wall as tightly as possible. Around the corner came a large, handsome-looking Tamaranian man, a pike clutched in his hand. He looked warily about as he moved down the hall, and the way in which he held his spear made it clear that he had orders to "dispose" of any intruders, which made it all the more disturbing when he stopped just after having passed her position. As he slowly turned in place to take in the whole of the hall once again, Raven very carefully allowed the energy of her sword to coalesce in her hand, silently creating the blade of the shadow stuff that already hid her from view. Luckily, though, once he had turned a full circuit, the guard was satisfied and simply moved on, leaving Raven's parasympathetic nervous system to slow her thundering heart within her chest. She was glad, because she knew that if he had remained even just a second longer, she would have leapt out and buried her sword in his back. It frightened her, just a little, to know that her love for Starfire was so great that she would risk her own life like she was for her, that Raven was willing to accept killing as a necessity, if it meant saving her.

She moved on, and wondered then, what she would do if it all turned out to be for naught, if it truly was necessary for Star to go through with the marriage. After a small amount of soul searching, the answer came easily to her: attempt to alleviate the necessity. If it was some alien menace, then it would be quite simple, as she would either destroy the force and negate the need for Starfire's arranged marriage, or be too dead to care that she'd lost her crimson-haired love. Cowardly, she knew, but since when had the opinions of others ever mattered to someone so deeply in love?

Meandering through thoughts meant to sort our her jumbled emotional connections and resolve, Raven continued on until she instinctively moved up a flight of stairs, climbing them with considerable speed, especially keeping in mind her earlier, cautious pace. At the top she found a door, large and ornate, one which she didn't care to open.

"Even if you aren't locked, you'll still make a racket when I open you up." Raven murmured quietly to the door, before letting black energy collect at the tip of one outstretched finger. "Azarath, metrion, zinthos . . ." Easily, she traced a large circle around the door with that finger tip which, once completed, became a swirling portal of blackness, one that the dark magus slipped through without hesitation.

When she came through the other side, she was greeted by maniacal laughter, echoing through the whole of the chamber almost endlessly. The room itself appeared to be a second level, as evidenced by the flight of stairs coming up a distance away from her position, and judging by the large panes of glass set into the inner walls looked down upon another room, she had to guess it was some form of unorthodox balcony. Darkness filled it, as none of the overhead lights appeared to be functioning, but the lighting of the inner room made it child's play for Raven to find the source of the disturbing laughter.

"Wasn't it just such a delicious little ruse, Starfire?" Blackfire, dressed in the regalia of royalty and seated up on a great throne, asked of the girl seated beside her throne.

Starfire, dressed; and in that case, the term could only be used very loosely; in what amounted to an ornate set of metallic undergarments, and swathed in heavy chains as well a collar with a chain attached to it, said nothing in response. At the sight, Raven's hands clenched so tightly at her sides that her fingernails dug into her own flesh, though she did not notice, and in fact drew blood from the palms, which fell to the ground with a soft, rhythmic series of drips and plops.

"I tell you Tamaran is in grave danger from an unstoppable force, and you come running to save it without your precious friends." Blackfire laughed again, and tugged on the chain she held, the opposite end naturally attached to the collar that had been slapped onto Star, straining her sister's neck up. "Only to arrive and be shackled, now no better than a common slave." As Raven watched, rage quickly mounting, Blackfire yanked up again, forcing Starfire up to eye level with her, an extremely uncomfortable position, considering that the unfortunate alien had been sitting on the dias beside Blackfire's high throne. "How does it feel, sister _dear_, to know that this is your life now, and that you precious little Robin can't sa- . . ." Quite suddenly, Raven found herself grabbed from behind in arms that held a terrible strength, having apparently missed the approach of the guard in her blind focus on the goings on in the main room.

"Empress Blackfire, I have captured an intruder!" The guard bellowed out, making Raven's ire rise even further, as Blackfire might well use Starfire as a hostage and complicate the dark magus' rescue attempt now that she knew someone was there in the balcony.

The cloaked heroine struggled valiantly, but her weak body was no match for the beyond super-human guard that now held her in his grasp.

"Stop squirming, little one, I do not wish to hurt y- . . ." Then again, when it came to Raven, especially as emotionally charged as she currently was, physical strength wasn't the only thing that mattered.

"Azarath, metrion, zinthos!" Outward from Raven's body exploded a telekinetic wave of force, which easily blew the foolish warrior off of her, and into the back wall of the balcony hard enough to leave an imprint in the masonry.

Briefly, Raven glanced to the fallen Tamaranian, making sure that he was in fact down for the count, and then her eyes fell back on the inner room of the structure. Blackfire had already fled with Starfire, but that didn't really worry the violet-haired mage very much, as all of the guards that had been flanking the throne earlier now stood guard before just one door. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where the bitch had gone. Without even a thought, Raven's sword came to her hand, fairly throbbing with all of the barely constrained energy burning inside of her. In fact, even as she did so, the surface of the blade became alight with blazing sigils of red energy, runes of unknown origin.

"I'll get you back, Starfire, I swear it." With those words, the manifested sword cut through the air before her in a simple, X-pattern, cleaving the glass pane of the balcony into four, neat triangles, which were then immediately shattered as Raven came leaping through, flying straight for the group of guards with sword ready.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Gravity of Love - Enigma**

The guards scattered from Raven like the flimsy straw huts of tropical islands before the fury of a typhoon. None of them were seriously injured, a stroke of luck on their part, but Raven didn't bother to verify that fact, instead advancing onward. The hall was empty and straight-forward, but unsurprisingly the end of it was not. In fact, the large, vaulted hall that it led into was virtually full to the brim with grim faced warriors, some wielding weapons, while other simply "held" balls of glowing green plasma. The dark magus nearly shied away from such impossible odds, but when her eyes caught an unmistakable, even among so much of the very "same," shock of red hair flying on the far side of the hall, her resolve became unstoppable.

"Get out of my way." She said simply, and when none of the Tamaranians arrayed before her budged beyond preparing to skewer, rend, or disintegrate her, respectively, she took that as their answer.

Her sword struck out first, cleaving a presented lance and halberd at their hafts, just before her free, black glowing hand came forward and knocked their wielders far, far away with a blast of force. That single aggressive action ignited the entire powder keg, and the battle was on, the whole of the Tamaranian force surging forward at Raven, like a tidal wave of alien might. And, as it crashed all around her, the dark magus showed her mettle, a sweeping slash of her blade taking a number of weapons mid-strike, while nimble slides of her hand left behind curving shields of energy in the air, blocking yet more attacks.

With a diving roll, she dodged an axe strike that split the floor where she had been standing a moment ago, and her sword scythed through the waves before her, clearing them as if they were stalks of grain. Instantly, a dome of night sprang up around her, just as explosive balls of super-heated plasma came raining from above, blanketing the area in blazing destructive force. The shield burst outward when the assault ceased, extinguishing the many fires about Raven's position, and an easy gesture knocked the offending bomber from the air with what amounted to a telekinetic fly swatter.

Now wary of their foe's immense power, the Tamaranian forces fell back just a few feet, collectively trying to determine a better strategy for further assault. Raven did not move, despite her heart's urging for haste, instead simply watching her alien foes, waiting for them to renew their attack in whatever manner they deemed best. Quite suddenly, just one stepped forward, surprising not just Raven, but his fellows as well.

He was a tall, wiry male with a long head of that crimson hair, and rather piercing eyes, who held a long, thin-bladed swordin one hand at his side. He struck a stance, angling his body sideways while spreading his legs wide, sword arm raised but still bowed at the elbow, a fencing stance. Raven smirked slightly, and assumed a similar position, though her arm was instead fully extended. Tense air gathered around the two, as neither moved for several seconds, all eyes upon them. Then, like a cobra strike, the Tamaranian cross-stepped and lunged, Raven evading the strike by side-stepping and then swinging for his head, forcing him to retract and parry. Without even allowing him to regain his center, Raven struck again immediately, cutting for his mid-section , and even as he went to block, she disengaged the attack and made a whirlwind spin, bringing her sword back around for a deadly strike to his head. He just barely shifted his sword in time and parried the strike, only to feel it ghost right off of his blade as Raven swept her bodyback, and lunged. Surprisingly, she shifted the attack when she saw the acceptance of defeat in her opponent's eyes, sliding her sword blade just to the side of his head, and instead simply braining him with the pommel of the weapon. The hit laid him out instantly, unconscious, and with a quick flick of her wrist, the dark magus' sword came back into the ready position, prepared as its wielder scanned the army surrounding her for the next challenger.

From the ranks of their forces waded a huge woman, several heads taller than Raven, powerfully muscled, and dressed far more heavily than her fellows in what appeared to be actual armor. The ashen-skinned mage raised an eyebrow at her approach, but refused to retreat even an inch. She was willing to take her time and carefully work her way back to her goal, as she would do Starfire little good dead, but more than anything else, she was resolved to lose no ground at all. With a primal roar, the amazon charged the dark magus, mailed fists burning with green energy, and even as Raven went to counter strike, the huge woman did something completely unexpected. She snatched the blade of Raven's sword up in her hand, knocking the cloaked heroine off guard just long enough for her other fist to be planted savagely in the girl's stomach.The blow lifted the smaller girl bodily into the air, causing her to open her mouth to cry out in agony, but instead only be able to spit blood. Her total loss of concentration made the sword vanish, and with nothing left to anchor Ravento the armored woman, her body went tumbling away, landing in a heap at the outer-edge of the circle.

As the giant Tamaranian slowly stomped to where Raven had fallen, the dark magus pushed herself up from the ground, shaking as she strained many recently injured muscles, and gritting her teeth against the immense pain she was experiencing then. She glared at the approaching warrior with undeniable malice, and as she did so, her eyes began to take on the same coloration as the wash of blood running from her mouth and down the side of her chin. And though it faded, she immediately gestured back at the soldiers behind her, engulfing their weapons in the telekinetic energies she wielded, and then ripping them from their grasps as all of them were flung at the amazon. The warrior woman blocked most of them, either swatting them from the air with her powerful arms or deflecting them off of strategically placed pieces of armor, but even as she knocked the last spear from the air, she realized the truth of Raven's plan.

The dark magus had charged in right behind the weapons, using them as a blind, and thus shoulder rammed the huge Tamaranian as she stopped the last spear, a blast of force adding to the action and nearly toppling the warrior woman. And, before she could mount any kind of defense, Raven manifested her sword and trust it at a steep, upward angle in the woman's stomach, causing it to slip under and inside her ribcage and score an instantly fatal blow. The amazon fell, and at the sight of their comrade's assured death, the Tamaranian forces did not hesitate to renew their full-on assault against the dark magus.

Even as swords, spears, axes, and burning balls of energy crashed all around her, Raven knew how much time had elapsed.

"This is taking too long." She growled as she fended off one warrior's thrusting spear.

Abruptly, she caught her blade up in a double-handed grip and swung a full circuit around herself, sending out a shockwave of force that blew back her opposition and gave her some breathing room. And breathe she did, before bringing her fore and middle finger up before her eyes and intoned,

"Azarath, metrion, zinthos!" With but a single slicing motion of her hand, screaming blades of black energy launched forth, and split the floor from before her all the way to her desired doorway asunder, sending Tamaranians flying in every direction, several of whom were injured.

Without even a moment's hesitation, Raven went flying over the scar she had created in the floor, fending off the attacks of the Tamaranians that managed to get air-borne before she passed them. A spin kick knocked the last of them from the air and she slipped through the doorway, hoping she wasn't going to be too late.

* * *

"Azarath, metrion, zinthos!" With a tremendous effort, Raven managed to rip a large section right out of the wall, which was then almost immediately slammed over the doorway she had just come through, another moment's concentration imbuing it with fortifying essence. 

Not a moment too soon, as the sound of fists and metal pounding away at the barricade began to sound even before Raven could lower her arms. Shakily, the dark magus wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of one hand, realizing to the fullest extent possible how much of a foolish idea taking on an army of super-"humans" single-handedly was.

'Well, duh.' Another part of the girl's mind returned wryly, thankfully one other than Anbu.

A quick pivot to the side just barely allowed a ball of burning green plasma to whiz by Raven without effect, and with a deep, tired to the very soul, sigh, Raven turned to face her assailants. Thankfully, it was only a small group, _just_ thirty of them. They charged as soon as she laid eyes on them, and through she was worn out, her sword still came easily to her hand.

Raven swayed just around the first spear thrust, letting the haft slide against her mid-section as she lunged in to smash the wielder in the face with the pommel of her weapon. Taking the spear in hand even as it fell from the unconscious Tamaranian's grasp, the dark magus gave it a quick twirl to make the charging forces rethink their attack, and then immediately tossed it into their midst, her power turning it into a spinning disk of destruction that threw their formation into chaos. And then she was right among them, replacing the whirling pike with her own slashing blade. The wounded fell and those struck with her kinetic blasts were forcefully ejected from the melee, until none remained standing, and Raven was left with only a pair of plasma burns and a shallow cut across her back to show for it.

She collapsed to her knees afterwards, though, as her exhaustion had mounted to an almost unbearable level, and her head ached from all the mental exertion she had been pushing herself through. So, when the barricade over the door Raven had originally entered the room through began to fail, she grew sick with worry. Unsteadily, the exhausted mage rose to her feet, doing her best to at least _appear_ threatening, if nothing else. But when the wall finally broke, it was not a horde of battle-ready Tamaranians that came pouring through, but rather three curious figures.

"Man, how did you get this far by yourself Raven?" Beast Boy called to the dark magus, gesturing back to the mound of unconscious aliens he and the other male Titans had left in the other room. "I mean, these guys are brutal." Too relieved by their appearance to actually berate Robin for going back on his word, Raven simply let her legs slip out from underneath her, and fell to the ground.

"Raven!" The cry came up simultaneously from all three boys, and they rushed to her side, at which point she shook her head weakly.

"I'm fine, just tired is all." Gently, Robin slipped an arm under the ashen-skinned mage's back and helped her to sit up.

"Alright then, you stay here with Beast Boy and Cyborg, and I . . ." Raven did not hesitate to cut Robin off right there, locking hardened, violet eyes with the orbs that she knew lay hidden beneath his concealing mask.

"No, I'm going to go get Starfire."

"Raven, this is no time to be stubborn and possessive, Starfire's life is in danger, and you can barely even stand, just let me g- . . ." At that very moment, a chilling roar of a thousand throats being raised in ululation came echoing down the halls, causing Raven to smirk in a self-satisfied sort of way.

"Sounds like reinforcements are on the way, and since I'd be nothing more than a liability against an army . . ." The boy wonder's jaw clenched as he was obviously weighing the facts of the matter in his mind, and greatly disliking the answers he was coming up with.

Raven held no real malice for him, she understood that he simply wanted to do what had the best chance of saving Starfire, and that was all she really wanted too, she just also had a promise to keep.

"It's far more likely that I can take on Blackfire than another army, and the fact is that if they get through to her, we'll never save her." Growling, Robin forced Raven up onto her feet, and then immediately let her go.

When she managed to remain standing with a minimum of swaying, he turned his back on her and faced the doorway that the Tamaranians would soon be pouring through.

"You'd better give it your all and bring her back." He said, just loud enough to be heard over the approaching roar.

"Count on it." She returned, before breaking into a run through the doorway the previously defeated group had been guarding.

"You think she'll be alright?" Cyborg asked quietly from beside Robin, and through the vague nature of his question might have slowed an answer normally, it didn't then.

Because, regardless of whether he was referring to Starfire or Raven, the answer was the same.

"I hope so."

* * *

Raven's communicator indicated that Starfire had descended to a position over a thousand feet lower than her own. So, when she found a giant, open shaft that appeared to descend downward, and was guarded by several of the toughest-looking Tamaranians she'd seen yet, she was pretty sure she was on the right track. Naturally, as she stepped toward the shaft, they also stepped to bar her path, the largest among them leading. He stood before her like a great tower, shaggy mane of flaming red curls rolling down from the back of his head almost the whole length of his body, staring down at her as he readied the giant axe that he wielded. And as the dark magus sized him up, she found herself noting something odd in his bearing, reluctance and a note of regret. She looked to his eyes, even the filmed and obviously blinded one, and simply stared, hiding none of her feelings from his gaze, as it examined her in the same manner she had appraised him. In return, she saw what lay behind the stoic shroud over his eyes, she understood, far better than words or explanations could ever allow her, the feelings of the old warrior before her.

She took another step forward, and though the other aliens advanced to attack, they found his massive arms blocking their way. He stepped back, drawing the others back with him, and allowing Raven to pass. She did so, and without hesitation, leapt into the shaft. She planned to free fall most of the way down, as it would conserve her strength, which she knew she was going to need, having two promises to keep now. She'd sworn to Starfire that she would protect her, and now she had sword to her love's nurse that she would save Starfire. Regardless of anything else, she intended to keep those promises.

Even with her cloak flying about her, Raven closed her eyes and sensed out the whole shaft easily, finding the bottom and her position relative to it in an instant. Immediately after doing so, she put on what amounted to the telekinetic brakes, firing a powerful burst of energy straight beneath her, allowing her to touch down physically unharmed, though landing squarely on her behind damaged her pride considerably. After dusting herself off and grumbling about the "stupid laws of physics," she went through the open doorway presented before her, and found a disquieting sight before her.

Starfire was on her knees in the middle of the room, still chained heavily, and with Blackfire towering over her, a ball of purple energy burning in her raised hand.

"Isn't it wonderful, Robin?" She called snidely to Raven, and for a moment the girl was taken aback, until she looked down at herself, and realized that she had instinctively cloaked herself in darkness before entering the room.

Thus, in the shadow of the entryway, she was little more than a silhouette, even with the light of Blackfire's plasma bolt shining throughout the dank room.

"You're here to save your little princess, but I already have the upper hand, because I know you're not fast enough to keep me from taking her pretty little head off." She smiled maniacally, almost insanely even, and moved her hand just a little closer to Star's head, singeing several hairs off of her head.

Before she could bring it any closer, though, she found her arm entrapped by black energies and pulled away by an undeniable force.

"That would have been a good plan, if it had actually been Robin that came after her." Raven called to Blackfire as she stepped into the light, letting her concealing spell melt away.

"Raven, you came for me!" Starfire cried, completely unable to pretend as though she was displeased with the dark magus for disregarding her wishes.

"Of course I did, did you think I was just going to let you go, even after everything we went through?"

"Certainly not, it is just that I told you not to come, that you would be killed if you came."

"And you thought that would stop me?" Raven was smirking, but it was uneasy, as Blackfire had yet to act.

Ever since Raven had shown herself, Blackfire had simply stared in disbelief, not even attempting to fight the telekinetic shackling of her hand, and that worried the dark magus. Finally, though, she moved, looking first to Starfire, then to Raven, and then back again, an emotion in the depths of her almost human eyes that disturbed Raven even further.

"You . . . you love her?" She asked haltingly of Starfire, looking as though she might well fall to her knees before her sister and plead for the answer, if necessary.

Taken aback, Starfire did not answer at first, but did eventually acknowledge the truth with a wordless nod. Blackfire's eyes almost seemed to light up at the answer, and she truly did drop to her knees then.

"Ever since you were born, mother and father liked you better, you know?" She asked sadly, her emotions shifting as the recalled memories evoked them with their powerful, personal significance. "After that, they never paid as much attention to me as they had before, it was always about you. They always gave you more, spent more time with you, let you do more, get away with more." The dark-haired alien looked to be on the verge of tears as she spoke so softly that it was actually difficult to hear, a fact which shook both Raven and Starfire to the core. "They loved you more, plain and simple. And it didn't even get any better after they died, because Galfore paid more attention to you, loved you more, just like they did!" Starfire winced then, hearing the frustration, anger, and loneliness in Blackfire's voice, as it recalled so many things from her youth that tortured voice had been involved in.

But the raven-haired sister interrupted that reverie with a narration of her own.

"I hated you because of it, and I took every opportunity I could to beat up on you and make you feel bad, taking it all out on you. But . . ." She clenched her fists at her sides, looking down at the cold, stone floor. "Even after I did all of that, you never told mom and dad, or Galfore even, and you never stopped treating me kindly, never stopped loving me as your big sister." As Raven watched, she felt a dread feeling rising up in the pit of her stomach, having a terrible knowledge of what would come next. "You loved me, and I love you." Suddenly, Blackfire's face was right before Star's, a strange, disturbing look in the normally maniacal Tamaranian's eyes, a frantic, desperate look.

And then, Blackfire chastely kissed Starfire, just the slightest press of lips upon lips for a moment, before she pulled away.

"I did it all for you, after you left I thought I'd never see you again, so I started stealing things, wreaking places, did everything I could do to get you to come home. The police from all those worlds couldn't outfight me, couldn't stop me, I knew they'd send for you eventually." Staring up at the ceiling of the chamber, Blackfire smiled faintly and played with her own fingers, almost childishly, and then hugged Starfire. "And then you'd come back and save me, and love me." As she felt her sisters's arms around her still chained body, Starfire looked utterly dumbfounded, unable to believe that what was happening then really was, that it wasn't some kind of florka weed induced delusion.

It was like some kind of sick joke, the kind that even Beast Boy knew to be in bad taste, like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and then laughing when someone was trampled to death in the stampede to escape. But the worst part of it all was that both Starfire and Raven knew that it wasn't a joke. It was all too real. And, looking a little frightened, Blackfire pulled away from Starfire, looking to her pleadingly.

"You do still love me, don't you, Starfire?" The crimson-haired Tamaranian's expression cracked, and she tried to look away from those wide, begging eyes with all her strength, torn between her; notably platonic; feeling for her sister, and the horror of what was transpiring.

Star's conflict was alleviated, though, when Raven's voice rang out from across the room.

"That's really pathetic, you know that, right?" With a growl akin to that of an enraged lioness, Blackfire rounded on the dark magus, but Raven did not even let her begin to speak. "Did you really delude yourself that much, that you thought Starfire would love you for stealing things, for destroying people's homes and cities, for hurting and killing people?" She advanced on the alien, anger and disgust flaring in her eyes, and Blackfire actually did retreat from her somewhat. "Are you that stupid, that you think you could trick her into coming here, degrade her by chaining her up like this, and then expect her to instantly fall in love with you?" Raven stopped and shook her head, smirking. "You really must be sick in the head, if you believe that." A shriek of incomprehensible, almost insane rage tore itself from the Tamaranian Empress' throat, and she lunged at Raven, fingers hooking into talons that fairly hungered to rip into Raven's eyes.

The dark magus dodged to the side, striking at Blackfire's back as she flew by and sending her sprawling with almost no effort at all. But she was back up instantly, on all fours like some kind of feral animal, and the snarl on her lips then did little to contradict that image.

"You don't know anything, you don't understand!" She yelled at Raven, fists charging with energy.

"I know enough to say that you desperately need professional help." Raven retorted bitingly, and the shield of black force that sprang up before her easily blocked the double plasma burst assault from the incensed alien.

"You don't know anything about what I've been through, I was alone all of my life, no one ever loved me except for her!" Raven shook her head disparagingly.

"Cry me a river, I have all of those problems, and I have an evil demon inside me that wants to take over my body." She shifted, ghosting to the side as Blackfire struck at where she had been a moment ago. "And considering that I'm running circles around you even though I'm exhausted, I'd say you might want to just give up now." A purple blazing fist flew just past Raven's face as she dodged to the side, and a ragged scream followed it.

"You bitch, you don't deserve her!" Raven's violet eyes twinkled darkly at the accusation, and from her helpless position watching the fight, Starfire's spirits fell further.

"You have **no** idea what I went through to have her love." She growled quietly, ire quickly rising, and as the raven-haired alien noticed that, her face split in a vicious smile.

"Oh, I think I know just fine how you got her 'love' . . ." She said tauntingly, the two dark girls slowly circling one another. "I think you just led her into your bed with a trail of delicious little lies, and then you . . ." Her eyes rather suddenly hidden by the shadow of her cowl, Raven simply said,

"Shut up," to cut Blackfire off, voice dangerously quiet.

Blackfire, though, had every intention of pressing her advantage.

"Was my little sister a good fuck, Raven _dear_, did she taste good on your tongue when you stuck it in her cu- . . ."

"SHUT UP!" Raven's sword came instantly to hand as she lunged for Blackfire, and though one would have expected the cruel alien to take up the position of taunting manipulator, she instead moved to intercept the dark magus, fists burning with plasma.

Though her anger may have cooled, Blackfire far preferred the idea of throttling Raven with her own two hands to playing with the foolish mage. Much like the amazon before her, the raven-haired alien grabbed the blade of the dark magus' sword in her energy shielded hand, effectively removing its razor edge from the combat equation. But Raven was a fast learner, and even as Blackfire snatched up the sword, she landed a savage kick to the alien's stomach, blowing her back. Blackfire fairly roared in outrage at the blow and her clenched fists glowed even more intensely with energy, before she sent a veritable firestorm of plasma bolts flying for Raven.

The violet-haired mage gasped, before throwing every last bit of breath she had into a focusing chant.

"Azarath, metrion, zinthos!" A powerful barrier of black energy sprang into existence before her just in time, and reverberated with the shocking force of the plasma bolts' impact against it.

Within just two seconds, the air was hopelessly clouded with thick smoke, making it impossible for Raven to tell where Blackfire was, thus making it quite easy for the alien girl to sneak up on her. The first punch landed solidly against the side of Raven's head, almost striking her temple, and the second crashed itself remorselessly into her side, a kidney punch. Despite the intense pain wracking her body after the assault, Raven refused to be taken down, because she knew that if she were, Starfire would be at the mercy of her seemingly psychopathic sister.

Surprising her alien attacker, she almost immediately responded, striking back with a suddenly far shorter sword, scoring a cut across Blackfire's chest before a strong punch caught the Empress just under the chin and sent her reeling back. The Tamaranian terror, having a similar aversion to backing down from the conflict, came right back at Raven. The two fairly whirled around the room, around Starfire, while locked in their deadly dance, kicks, jabs, blades, and bolts of energy flying in every direction at any given moment.

"You know what I think I'll do with her first?" Blackfire suddenly called out into the melee, catching Raven's attention. "I think I'll try out those Grok'dor fruits on her, I've heard talk from the courtesans that they make the perfect substitute for the anatomy that I lack." The very thought of Blackfire violating her sister with some kind of insane fruit made the dark magus' blood boil, and as her eyes flashed blood red for a moment, she raised her once again full-sized sword high over her head for a devastating strike.

"Raven!" Starfire cried out, just before Blackfire rammed her fist into the violet-eyed mage's stomach, doubling the other girl over in agony.

The second blow, a double-handed hammer strike to the back of the head, slammed Raven's body savagely to the hard, stone floor, and after initially falling against it, she lay very still.

"And all that's left is finishing off this bitch, then you're mine, sister dear." Blackfire said, smiling at the younger Tamaranian as she lay on the verge of tears, before one of her clenched fists lit up with purple energy.

Even as she went to crush Raven's skull with one energy-charged blow, huge wings of black light sprang forth from the girl's back, deflecting the attack with ease, and even knocking Blackfire across the chamber with just a flap of their span.

"Raven?" Starfire asked tentatively as her love rose from the ground, wings and all.

She was shocked into silence, though, when she saw Raven's eyes. Her four, blazing red eyes. The wings vanished then, returned from whence they came, but the eyes remained, and Raven smiled darkly as Blackfire climbed back to her feet across the chamber.

"What the hell was that!" She yelled angrily, glaring death at the figure across from her, and as the blue of her cloak slowly shifted to the deepest, darkest of black, "Raven" laughed mockingly.

Growling, Blackfire launched a flurry of purple plasma bolts, which the black fury easily dodged, even catching one in a set of energy talons she had materialized around her free hand. She crushed the globe, sending out a spray of harmless, sparkling light particles, and without letting the vicious smirk slip from her lips, she advanced on Blackfire, slowly and menacingly. The alien Empress wasn't content to wait, though, and charged her assailant, striking out with all her might at the dark demon. A loud clang rang out, as Blackfire's fist met the flat of Anbu's falchion, and then the raven-haired alien only just barely managed to avoid having her face ripped off by the demon magus' taloned hand.

Still, she did not escape the telekinetic energies that surrounded her body a moment later, and as soon as she was clenched in their iron grip, she was violently smashed into the wall. After two crushing strikes, she was released, and fell to her knees clutching at her arm, which was now bent at an obviously abnormal angle. Anbu moved toward her at an easy, even leisurely, pace, letting her sword scrape across the stone of the floor with a screech akin to that of a tortured, dying animal.

"What the hell are you!" Blackfire cried, fear dancing in her eyes, and an evil smile split Anbu's features at the question.

"Your worst nightmare, and the last thing you'll ever see!" The wickedly-edged sword came up high over her head in a double-handed grip, poised for the killing blow.

"No, do not kill her, Raven!" Starfire screamed, voice wracked with agony as she tried to struggle free from her bonds. "She is my sister, I do not want her to die, regardless of what she has done!" The cry shook both Blackfire and Raven, for that was indeed who she had become, as was apparent from the transformation of her sword, and the way in which her arms were slowly sagging from their high attack position.

Realizing that she was no longer facing the frightening monster she had been, Blackfire decided to try for one more attempt to succeed, suddenly lurching up from her crouched position.

"Raven!" Starfire yelled in warning, catching Blackfire's movement, and with sublime grace, Raven slid to the side of the attack.

Then, with the force of a desperate wish for the whole thing to be done with, the dark magus struck Blackfire with the pommel of her weapon, right at the juncture where her neck met her shoulders. The disturbed alien fell, and it was finally over.

* * *

It was over. Blackfire was in custody, being held in a cell deep in the citadel, and she had been deposed as the Grand Ruler of Tamaran, so there was nothing left for them there. Besides the issues that still persisted, that is. They sat in silence in the throne room, alone and brooding, as Raven had frightened all the other Tamaranians from the room. Starfire was curled up on the throne, legs pulled up against her chest as her eyes stared off into the distance, deeply disturbed. Raven could imagine that Starfire, with her eyes so wide and blank as they gazed off to the side, at least thought that she could see right through the walls of the castle, probably to some calming, serene place from her childhood.

That was where she wanted to be then, not there in the castle, not in a place where her too loving sister lay in a cage some several hundred feet below her, and certainly not in the same room as her demon-possessed girlfriend.

"Why does it have to be like this?" Raven whispered to herself, lamenting the insane complications that seemed to appear half out of nowhere and make a damn good attempt at ruining her life.

And as the sound reached her, Starfire looked up to Raven, her eyes losing their glassy sheen they'd developed as they had been gazing into the void.

"What, Raven?" Starfire asked, her voice a soft whisper.

"Nothing, Star, I'm just muttering to myself." The dark magus returned, knowing that Starfire had more than enough things on her mind and shoulders as it was, their relationship was the least of her worries then.

"Oh . . ." Star murmured, before sinking back into herself.

She returned fairly quickly, though, making Raven jump slightly as her thin voice slipped through the air.

"What are we going to do?" Raven hesitated for just a moment, unsure of what her Tamaranian lover was talking about exactly.

Still, she took a wild shot in the dark.

"I'm not sure, if we just send Blackfire back to prison, she'll probably just come right back again after she breaks out." Starfire nodded, and Raven knew that she had guessed correctly.

"And there are . . . the other issues . . ." Starfire added, her voice darkened slightly as she seemed to sink even further into herself, both figuratively and literally.

It was difficult, because there was no easy answer. No prison could hold her forever, and no therapist could help her with her problems unless she wanted to be helped. Sadly, the therapy wasn't just a knee-jerk reaction either, Blackfire's behavior during, and especially before, the fight hinted at deeply ingrained psychological issues, emotional disturbance most prominent among them. It made Raven shudder to think of what might have happened to Starfire if she and the others hadn't come to rescue her. It was impossible to predict Blackfire's behavior, but with the way she had acted, it was likely that a rejection by Starfire would have triggered a psychotic episode in the raven-haired Tamaranian, with frightening consequences.

Silence reigned, as neither could come up with any kind of answer, until finally, Raven had a thought.

"Star, I'm going to go talk to her." That proclamation brought Starfire right out of her proverbial shell, eyes wide with surprise.

"You are what!"

"I'm going to have a heart to heart with your sister, and I'm going to see what I can do about all of this." Raven turned to go at that very moment, wanting to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible, heading for the double doors out of the spacious room.

"Ra- . . ."

"I know you, Starfire, I know what hurts you." Raven said strongly before Star could even say her whole name, and then looked back at the Tamaranian pointedly. "And you know that I would never do anything to hurt you, so don't worry." That said, she turned back, and continued on to the doors.

One more time, though, Starfire called her name.

"Raven."

"Yes, Star?"

"I am sorry . . ."

"For what?"

"If it had not been Blackfire, if it had not all been a ruse to lure me here . . ." Starfire's voice fell to nothing more than a whisper, but Raven still heard her. "If it had been real . . . I do not know what I would have done." The dark magus knew Starfire was on the verge of tears, feeling as though she had betrayed her love.

She simply shook her head, without looking back.

"It's alright, I understand." She couldn't help a little bit of hurt tainting the candor of her voice, but that was only half from Starfire's "betrayal." "It's easy for me to say that you're the thing I care about most in the world, more than my own life, because I've never had anything but you." She didn't hesitate any more after that, leaving the room as quickly as possible.

But even as the doors closed behind her, one last thing reached the alien princess.

"Please, don't blame yourself or feel guilty." And then Starfire truly did cry.

* * *

It was quite a cell, one that looked like it could hold Blackfire for quite some time. Very large and very heavy bars, what she knew to be plates of Kerinthian Steel both above and below the rock facade of the ceiling and floor, respectively. It also helped that the insane ex-ruler was wrapped from head to toe in chains, just as she had Starfire before. Blackfire had looked up when Raven had been allowed in, obviously hoping that Starfire had come to see her, but when she realized that her guest was the dark magus, she became far less enthused.

"We're sending you back to prison, where you belong." She announced without any kind of preamble, and Blackfire, unsurprisingly, just laughed.

"Good, I'll be out of there in no time, and then I can go down to your little dirt ball of a planet, wring the life out of you, and take Starfire for my own, all before dinner time." Raven didn't even bat an eyelash at Blackfire's response, as it was not at all unexpected.

"If you're so very willing to do things that would hurt Starfire so deeply, then I'm sorry, but I can't believe that you really think, even in your deluded mind, that you love her." No starbolt came hissing through the air to take her head off, because just as Raven had been assured by Galfore, the chains that bound Blackfire sapped her abilities, glowing a deep violet as the enrage alien tried to draw on the energies inside of herself.

The problem was that the metal would eventually break from absorbing too much of that power, and then Blackfire would be free. But, for the time being, those chains made having a civil conversation with the insane bitch possible, and that was enough.

"Go to hell." The deposed empress growled at Raven, eyes filled with murderous rage.

"I hate to be cliche', but I've been there and done that, and you know **nothing** about pain and suffering." Raven fired back coldly, advancing closer to the cage. "And I will promise you right now that if you ever try something like this again, try to hurt Starfire or me, I will make sure you truly and deeply understand those concepts before we send you off again." The harshness and sheer, icy resolve present in Raven's voice caught Blackfire off guard, and she couldn't help but try to scoot away from the violet-eyed mage in fear.

But, after a moment, she caught herself, and schooled her features into a dark glare.

"Did you come here for some purpose beyond playing peacock and posturing?"

"I came to talk to you, to make sure that you understood."

"Understood what?"

"Understood what's going on, what this situation is about." Blackfire became utterly disinterested in just a moment, her face a mask of disdain.

"What's there to know, I want her, and I'll have her eventually." With a shockingly loud "CRACK" in the near silent dungeon, Blackfire's head was snapped to the side by a sharp, open-handed slap.

For an instant, her eyes were absolutely wide in total surprise, but then they narrowed to enraged, seething slits. Confident that she had the raven-haired alien's full attention then, Raven slipped her arm back within the concealing darkness of her cloak, and spoke before the girl could vent her anger in curses and screams.

"You're hurting her already, because of what you said to her she's retreating into herself, trying to go back to the days before her sister loved her in a way that she shouldn't." Blackfire's eyes flared with neon-purple light as her rage fairly peaked in that instant, and the venom in the words she spat then was almost enough to knock Raven from her feet.

"Who are you to talk! You're a fucking dirty dyke too, and whatever the hell you are certainly isn't anywhere near human!" The raging alien bodily threw herself at the bars separating her from Raven, heedless of any pain she caused herself as she screamed out her razored words.

Raven, for her part, gave no indication that she was bothered by the verbal assault in the slightest, despite the shards of Blackfire's words that lodged themselves in the dark corners of her heart.

"That may be, but it doesn't change the fact that she's your sister, you shouldn't be upsetting her like this, for nothing at all." Blackfire took instant umbrage at Raven's claim, but a telekinetic gag found its way over her mouth before she could even vocalize the first syllable of her outraged protest. "You should give this up, give her up, for both of your sakes." She said, and when it became apparent that Blackfire wouldn't stand to be silenced forever, Raven simply let the gag slip.

"You're just saying that because you want her for yourself!" The dark magus sighed and shook her head, truly saddened as she spoke.

"No, I'm not, I really don't believe that pursuing this obsession would be healthy for you, and worse . . . I don't think Starfire could ever love you the way that you want her to, you're too much of a sister to her, even despite all the things you're done to her." As Raven hit upon the dark truth that had been nagging at the back of Blackfire's mind, that inescapable fact that the deposed empress had been trying so desperately to deny, the raven-haired alien physically wilted, her head sagging low under it's own weight.

"Please, just go away . . ." She sounded broken, utterly demoralized, and Raven simply couldn't leave her like that.

"When you get out, you're free to come and visit us in good faith." She offered, but her sharp, violet eyes caught the dangerous gleam that shined in Blackfire's eye as she registered the promise. "But if you so much as touch one hair on her head in a hurtful manner, I won't hesitate to cut you in half." The frightening alien only smirked in response.

"We'll see when it comes to that then, won't we?"

* * *

Raven entered her room, Starfire in tow, and stood in awe of the tiny space. It looked more welcoming than it ever had before in her life after their ordeal, it truly felt like home then. She knew, they both knew, that it was a quiet place, a sanctuary removed from the complications of the real world. More than anything else, and even though there was still no physical integration between their spaces, it was **their** space, **their** home, it was the home of their love. They were relieved, immensely so, that they no longer had to fight, no longer had to struggle. They had each other, and that was what mattered. But even that thought was not a completely comforting one.

Starfire bit her lip, stopping just inside of the room even as Raven continued to slowly plod her way toward the bed.

"Raven, I . . ." Before the alien girl could get any farther, the dark magus' quiet, tired voice cut through the distance between them, ringing with perfect clarity in Starfire's ear.

"Don't apologize, you have no obligation to do so, you're not at fault for anything that happened." The Tamaranian stared at her lover's back in surprise, but after a moment's consideration she spoke again.

"I am still sorry. I must apologize even if I bear no guilt for what occurred on Tamaran, because I have wronged you, dove." She let her eyes fall in shame. "I have spurned your deep heartfelt love through my inferior level of feeling, by not loving you as strongly as you love me." In an instant Raven was before Starfire, her ashen lips curled upwards in the faintest of smiles, and she reached up to softly wrap her arms about the alien girl's neck.

"You care, and that's enough, that's all I really want." She hugged Starfire even tighter, almost desperately. "So please, stop cutting yourself with this, 'I don't care enough and I'm not worthy' stuff, alright?" After taking a brief moment to consider the worried, even frightened tone in Raven's voice, the Tamaranian Princess nodded, and nuzzled the top of the short girl's head in an affectionate but wordless apology.

"I understand, dove." The dark magus didn't dare let go for a time after that, too fearful that if she did, Star would revert to her foolish belief that she was somehow unfit to be the violet-haired girl's lover.

That would be the cruelest joke of them all, if Starfire were to leave Raven because she didn't think she was good enough for her. Finally, though, they separated with just a little trepidation, knowing that they had to do so in order to get ready for bed, but dreading what might happen when they actually did. Of course, as both wandered over to their now shared closet, Raven happened to notice exactly how irresistible the cushioned expanse of her bed really did look. So entangled by its siren song, she couldn't help but simply stumble from her feet to take a dive into its waves of soft, downy blankets.

Starfire, in the process of removing her form fitting top at the time, glanced back just in time to catch the dark magus' final impact upon the yielding surface of the bed, and after a moment's consideration, decided that she didn't really have the energy to change into her night clothes. A brief struggle later, she finished removing the stretchy garment from its position high on her arms, and then collapsed in bed beside her love. She had assumed that both she and Raven would be asleep in moments, considering how drained both were from their ordeal. But as the seconds ticked by, Starfire found that her body refused to actually rest, held back from doing so by a nagging feeling of unease within herself.

Finally, her frustrations mounting, Starfire gave up the pretense of trying to sleep and opened her eyes, only to find Raven's own eyes staring into hers.

"Is something wrong, dove?" Starfire asked, surprised by Raven's severe look.

"I thought that we agreed we **wouldn't** use pet names for each other, Starfire?" the alien girl almost smirked, reaching out to tenderly run her fingers over Raven's cheek.

"_You_ agreed that we would not use pet names, Raven, I had nothing to say on the subject. Besides," she noted with a devilish smile, "I have seen the way that you blush when I address you as my dove." Raven's steely composure broke as she was blind-sided by Star's almost sultry behavior, and couldn't help but look away as she gave a weak retort, cheeks already colored.

"That's because its embarrassing to get called something like that!" The mysterious heroine was trying to be serious, trying to remain dignified and above the petty nuances that sometimes came with love, and she was failing miserably.

"Of course, and I would have it no other way, my sweet, black dove." Starfire commented with a satisfied smile of triumph, before softly nuzzling Raven's nose with her own. "Now that our disagreement is settled, perhaps we can go to sleep?" The alien girl asked, her eyes suddenly hooded heavily with the overwhelming fatigue that she was no longer holding back.

Raven nodded silently, still too mortified by her loves total victory over her to even look the Tamaranian in the eye. But, when the dark magus was absolutely certain her crimson-haired love was sound asleep, she shifted slightly, sitting up in bed.

"Sweet dreams, Starfire." A gentle kiss fell upon the other girl's forehead. "You deserve them for granting my wish, my shooting star." And, with a smile on her lips, the violet-eyed mage fell into her own comfortable, deep slumber.

* * *

And, high on the rooftop of the Titan's Tower, a great, menacing figure perched. It was a creature of darkness so absolute that it stood out starkly from the night-time blackness around it. Truthfully, it was not even perceived through the reflection of light from its surface, because it did _not_ reflect light from its surface. Human eyes could not fully perceive it, simply because their gaze would slide off of it like water from fine glass. The only part of it that could truly be see, could be focused upon, were its eyes, four slits in its avian head that glowed with a dark, blood-red light. In an instant, the great beast unfurled its wings from about itself, spreading them to their full span before giving a single, mighty flap and taking off from the roof. 

Its flight took it virtually straight up into the moonlit sky, mighty wings beating with a rhythmic menace that matched the tempo of a dying heart. As it reached the zenith of its rise, having given the final flap of its wings, it let loose a terrible, ear-splitting shriek, and fell into a death spiral dive. Instead of striking the Titan's Tower when its fall reached the building, though, it simply subsumed into it.

And, from that moment on, the lights shining from within its confines seemed just a little dimmer, while the shadows of its dark places loomed all the larger, like a deadly predator moments from striking . . .


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Awake - Godsmack**

Pain. Sharp and crushing pain. It was persistent, refusing to be transitory as it should have been, instead remaining constant and unrelenting. Starfire could not continue sleeping through it, and thus she opened her eyes to the single most frightening sight she had ever seen in her life. It was Raven, perched over her form, but at the same time, it was not. She knew this, because it was not her dove's gentle, violet eyes that she stared up into then, but four malice-filled slits that glowed with an unearthly light. It was Anbu.

Besides, even if she had not been able to see the monster's eyes, the fact that she was being viciously throttled by the creature usurping Raven's body was a dead give away. Star wanted to say something or scream but she found that she couldn't at all, so powerful was the grip of those small, soft hands wrapped tightly around her neck. That very grip was also killing her, very slowly and **very** painfully, and reminding her disturbingly of the moments just after Raven awoke from her deadly nightmares, when a similar situation had occurred. Except that this time she didn't expect to survive.

Weakly, the Tamaranian brought an arm up to try and claw at the face of her attacker, but could not bring herself to hurt it, to hurt the body of her lover, even as its hands were strangling her to death. But that didn't truly matter, as there was no strength left in that arm, her brain already starving of resources. Starfire's eyelids drooped, the darkness slipping in at the edges of her vision, and she dully recognized that the monster's stolen visage, the face of a dark angel, had split with a smile of fiendish glee at her feeble attempts to resist. That expression frightened the young woman to the very core of her being, to the point where all rational thought fled from her mind in abject terror.

Star tried again to scream, for both the fear thundering in her chest and for the sudden tightening of Anbu's grip around her neck, the demon usurper's fingernails actually cutting into the alien girl's skin and drawing forth blood. But still she could not, no sound could pass through Starfire's virtually crushed throat, and even then, she could barely manage to see past the dark haze that was falling over her vision, her brain finally shutting down. And as she slipped from the world of conscious perception, Star managed to hear if not fully understand, the words Anbu spoke then.

". . . only the beginning . . . dear . . . only . . . beginning . . ." Then she was lost in a sea of blackness, mind far beyond the reach of any material power.

* * *

Very slowly, as if dredging her way up through an ocean of thick, pitch black tar, Starfire awoke from her deep slumber. Blearily, she opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, her mind an empty expanse of substance-less thoughts. She shifted slightly to look at Raven then, for a reason her conscious mind couldn't quite comprehend at that particular moment, but gained more than she bargained for in doing so. Namely a screech of pain not unlike a hundred fingernails scraping across a chalkboard, which rolled through her whole being in an instant, knocking the alien girl from her precarious position on the edge of the bed. 

And as she struck the floor beside the bed, hands going to clutch at her neck, the source of the pain, everything came back to Starfire in a terrible rush. She tried to scream, but almost in some cruel parody of the previous night she could not, her vocal cords too abused to produce anything more than a hoarse croak. The fear built in the Tamaranian, unable to express the emotion and relieve the cloying, suffocating pressure it was exerting on her being, and she couldn't think of any other way to do so. In desperation, she scrambled to the closet and the mirror she had convinced Raven to hang in it, hoping to prove that it had been nothing but a terrible dream.

Star knew that she was grasping at straws, though, knew exactly what she would and did find when she threw open the door to Raven's closet, livid red imprints of thin hands around her throat, complete with barely scabbed-over puncture wounds at the tips of the finger marks. She wanted to scream even more but obviously could not, and she wanted to cry as terrible, conflicting thoughts tore though her psyche, but was also blocked from doing so as Raven stirred in the bed. With only an instant to consider the situation, Starfire snatched up Raven's cloak from where it had fallen after being discarded the night before, and tossed it about her shoulders. She managed to get the clasp locked just as Raven rolled over to face Star, eyes squinted against the bright, morning light that filled the room.

"Star . . . what are you doing up?" The dark magus blinked several times, and then rubbed at her eyes to try and clear her vision. "And why . . . are you wearing my cloak?" She asked, her confusion heightening her awareness and bringing her to full wakefulness in moments.

The Tamaranian smiled nervously, falsely, and attempted to speak in her normal voice, but choked that back when she realized that it would not work. Instead, she let it slip from her as a hoarse whisper.

"I am sorry, Raven, but I was cold and did not wish to wake you." Raven looked at Star for a time and nodded.

"I was probably hogging all of the blankets." Following her agreement, the dark magus let her eyes fall to the empty side of the bed between herself and the alien, indeed bereft of blankets. "Sorry." Starfire shook her head, honest relief in the expression, though it was for the fact that Raven had bought the ruse. "What about your voice, though?" Raven asked suddenly, seizing up Star's whole body once again.

"I- . . . I think I am ailing." The girl nervously answered, scrambling to maintain the illusion. "I . . . have not been feeling well since we returned from Tamaran."

"Maybe you caught something while you were there?" The dark magus suggested as she slipped out of bed, concern in her violet eyes.

She came toward Starfire with the intention of feeling the alien girl's forehead, to get an idea of her current body temperature, and her approach once again froze any answer in the poor Tamaranian's throat. She held perfectly still as Raven laid a hand on her brow, body paralyzed by an almost instinctive terror.

"You don't feel any different than usual." The violet-haired mage commented after taking her hand away, and her mounting worry showed through her eyes.

Something was wrong, but she couldn't seem to figure out what it was. Given Raven's moment of contemplation, Starfire just barely managed to compose herself.

"It is . . . probably the Deserenian snurdles, my people's equivalent to the human 'sore throat'." She offered in her bare whisper of a voice, and Raven nodded, accepting the explanation.

"Is there anything I can do to help, then?" Starfire marshaled all the hidden reserves of strength she had within herself and managed to smile warmly at her lover.

"Hot breakfast tea would be a glorious start." Raven returned the smile, relief washing over her like a mercifully cool wave of water on a blazing hot day.

"Alright, I'll go make some." Before leaving, the dark magus gently embraced Star and kissed her, a gesture of affection generated by her relief that everything might actually be all right. "I love you, Starfire."

"I love you too, Raven . . ." The affirmation of sentiment complete, Raven turned and left the room, already considering what blend of tea would best soothe her Tamaranian lover's troubled throat.

And, the moment that the door slid closed behind her, Starfire collapsed to her knees, torn by wrenching sobs that arose from deep within herself. She didn't want to blame Raven for what had happened, didn't want to hate her for the things Anbu had done. But it was so hard, so very hard, because the Tamaranian knew with a terrible and undeniable clarity that it wasn't over yet. She knew that Anbu was only just getting started.

* * *

Raven was surprised to find the main room of the tower empty, the view screen not dominated by the flashing lights and massive explosions of Cyborg and Beast Boy's games, the stereo system not blaring out unspeakable cacophonies of noise that dared to call themselves music, and the kitchen not in disarray as it was ravaged by another fight between Beast Boy and Cyborg over the content of that morning's breakfast. Which was just fine with her, as she much preferred getting the tea made and returning to Starfire with all the speed possible to the chance of getting sidetracked by the antics of the animal and mechanical pranksters. Naturally, though, this was not to be so, as Raven saw when Beast Boy fairly appeared before her out of thin air. A scowl crossing her features, the dark magus tried to push past the green nuisance and get by the obstruction without any wasted effort.

But he only followed her as she slipped into the kitchen, a big, toothy grin spread wide across his face. Raven tried to ignore him, tried to focus on getting out the tins with the appropriate tea leaves for her planned brew, but she knew even before the battle began that it would be a losing one for her. Finally, about the time that Raven was getting out the actual teapot, she could take it no longer.

"**What** is it, Beast Boy?" She growled out through clenched teeth, somehow managing to bite off the ends of her words despite that.

Without even opening his eyes or losing that grin, Beast Boy started right in.

"What would you call an aquarium in your love nest, Raven?" And then he waited again, waited for Raven to give some kind of an answer and participate further in the joke, ensuring that whether she liked it or not she'd hear the punch line.

Stubbornly, she tried to ignore him again, turning her back on him and taking the now steaming kettle off of the burner so she could warm and then fill the teapot after adding the leaves. But, once she had finished that last task, Raven found herself with nothing left to occupy her interest. Thus she gave in.

"What, Beast Boy, what would I call an aquarium in Starfire and my room?" She asked, finding that dancing to Beast Boy's little tune was leaving a rather foul taste in her mouth, along with a spark in the powder keg of her temper.

With grace rivaling that of the finest world-class acrobat, Beast Boy flipped up to land on the counter before Raven in a crouch, eyes wide with unsounded laughter.

"Potpourri!" The shape-changing youth nearly fell flat on his back atop that counter as peals of hysterical laughter ripped forth from his small form at the punch line, and it was for this reason that he missed the dangerous way that Raven was trembling.

As the hilarity began to subside within him, Beast Boy did at least notice that Raven wasn't laughing.

"Wh-what'sa matter, Raven, can't take a joke?" The very moment that the last word left his mouth, Beast Boy found his head smashed back and to the side, while his whole body went flying across the room.

He hadn't even really felt the initial blow that had put him in the air, the attack striking with such incredible speed and power, but he most certainly did feel it when his body smashed against the wall on the far side of the room with vicious force. Back behind the counter, Raven stared in horror at her outstretched arm, the back of her hand still surrounded by small, flame-like manifestations of her dark power. She couldn't comprehend what had possessed her to react so violently to a stupid little joke, offensive in nature or not.

"Dude!" Beast Boy yelled as he stumbled to his feet, clutching at his now throbbing face.

Raven's response was quite a simple one as she took one look at the hurt and anger in Beast Boy's eyes, amounting to nothing more than turning tail and running. She had to get back to Starfire, needed to see the Tamaranian desperately, and so she ran as fast as she could.

* * *

Outside of the training room, Starfire stood and agonized over her options. Inside Robin was practicing one of his many kata, working with a number of the training pieces as he did so, and did not appear to have noticed the alien girl's presence just outside the doorway to the room. She still wore Raven's cloak, having considered and dismissed the idea of switching over to her scarf already, realizing that everyone would immediately realize she was trying to hide something on her neck if she did so. With Raven's cloak she could simply claim that she wore it for one of any number of sentimental reasons and get away with it. A wave of virtual nausea rolled through Starfire's body, and she nearly doubled over trying to suppress it.

She was sick with herself, sick with her lying to not just her lover, now, but her friends as well. It didn't matter what reason she'd done it for, she'd still lied through her teeth to Raven before, and she hated herself for it. Now though, Starfire was faced with a far more difficult choice, not just whether or not to lie, but whether to warn the Titans of the danger that would soon befall them, might have already fallen even then, or not. She wanted to, she didn't want to see any of her friends hurt, but cruelly that couldn't be her only consideration. Starfire wasn't so naive as to think that, if she told the other Titans what was happening, everything would be peachy and no one would be hurt, she knew that the Titans "protecting" themselves meant fighting Anbu. And since Anbu was controlling Raven's body, the one actually getting hurt would instead be the dark magus, not the demon.

An avoidance-avoidance conflict in its purest form: if Starfire didn't tell Robin then Raven would remain unhurt but the others would not, and if she did then the Titans would be unharmed but Raven would not. Mutually exclusive goals that were tearing the poor alien girl apart inside. Worse, even putting aside her love of Raven, Starfire could not consider the "greater good for the largest number of people" in this scenario. Because as much as it pained her to admit it, Starfire was afraid of what Robin might do, how far he might go, in order to stop Anbu knowing that she had been hurt by her, nearly killed even. The crimson-haired girl wanted to scream out loud, to rage against the injustice of it all, and her fists clenched into a white-knuckled grip as she just barely restrained that urge.

It wasn't fair that she had to make decisions like that, to choose between the lives of her friends and her lover, wasn't fair that she was being put in such a position. Most of all, it wasn't right that she was beginning to hate Raven for doing all those things to her.

"Starfire, is something wrong?" The Tamaranian nearly jumped out of her skin as she was broken from her dark contemplation by Robin's question, the boy wonder now standing right before her in the doorway.

On impulse, Star nearly blurted out the entire sordid affair and all its details right then and there, but was halted once again by the vocal limitations of her injured throat. Ashamed of her lack of control, Starfire silently berated herself as she rode out the coughing fit that ensued following the botched confession, Robin laying hands on the alien to steady her.

"Are you okay, Star!" Once it subsided, Starfire lifted her head and looked up into Robin's mask covered eyes, her face haggard as she did little to hide the strain that the unfolding events were exerting on her.

"I am just feeling a little ill, I apologize for troubling you, Robin." At her answer, Robin could do little more than stare in confusion for a time before he composed himself.

"It's no problem, Star." He assured, gently helping the girl to stand back up straight. "Why are you here, though?" For a long moment, Starfire simply stared at Robin, green eyes a blank, unreadable void.

Finally, she answered.

"I had a question that I wished to ask you, but I appear to have forgotten what it was about." She bowed her head slightly, happy to let her gaze sink to the floor as she lied. "I apologize again." His expression troubled, Robin shook his head.

"It's fine, Starfire, but are you sure you're alright?" He tried to lay a hand comfortingly on the Tamaranian's shoulder, but she ghosted back from the movement, just avoiding the touch.

"No, I am not feeling well, so I think I will go lay down." She turned her back on him then, saying as she did so, "I will be in Raven's room if I am needed." No more words were spoken as she walked down the hall and out of sight, leaving Robin alone with his worry and quickly growing suspicion.

* * *

A few adjustments on the console and everything was ready. Dusting his hands off in a purely habitual gesture, Cyborg hopped off of the control platform for the beach's obstacle course and took his place at the starting line. Today, he was determined to beat his old record, even if it killed him. A few seconds ticked by in tense silence before the timer was finally up and the start siren blared, the sound setting Cyborg off like a shot. He navigated the course with a sort of brutal grace, tackling each obstacle that presented itself flawlessly, and with his own forceful style.

Saw arms were smashed before they could even get their blades up to full spin, disk launchers blasted before they had fired just three discs, and the cybernetic-teen hero was generally leaping through the air before the pit traps opened up, bypassing them completely. It was virtual perfection as the young warrior raced across the land that composed the course, simply avoiding every obstacle at that point in the name of finishing the course even faster. That is, until one of the saw arms just ahead of his position stretched out far faster than usual, presenting a deadly obstruction to the charging Cyborg's progress.

Surprised, all he could manage to do was throw his arms up before his face and continue on, smashing into the mechanical arm with enough force to tear its joint right out of the socket and shatter its whirling blade. The problem was that doing so also shattered the techno hero's momentum, causing him to tumble to the ground in a heap while several saw blades and disk launchers all converged on his position at once.

"Dammit." That one profanity was all Cyborg could manage to say before everything came together around him in an explosion of sound and flame, a cacophony of agonizing shrieks and screeches coupled with a blazing inferno that swirled about the area like a living, hungry thing.

When it was all over, nothing but a pile of blackened robotic arms remained, up until the point when the cyborg burst from the core of the mound.

"Man, that hurt!" The youth shouted indignantly, swiping at some of the soot that covered his face.

After expending much of his anger in that initial shout, though, Cyborg began to look around at the whole of the course with an appraising eye. Finally, he shook his head and sighed.

"My own fault for being such a damn fool, counting on the course being the exact same every time to win." After a brief glance to the pile of scrap metal beneath his feet, the metallic warrior shook his head once again, not happy with the mess. "I'll clean this up **after** I take a shower." That said, he headed off toward the entrance to the tower at its base, the odd incident quickly fading from memory.

High above, at his vantage point beside one of the many windows set in the tower, Robin watched Cyborg leaving the course. Unlike the cybernetically-enhanced youth, he would remember the mishap for some time to come, having seen the whole thing from start to finish. More importantly, though, Robin had also seen the shadow of darkness that had surrounded the join of that one particular saw arm just before it extended. As he continued to stare out at the beach, the boy wonder dearly hoped that he was mistaken, that it had just been the sun playing tricks on his eyes. But the metal bo-staff clutched at his side showed that he was expecting the worst.

Anbu was back, he feared, and no longer confined to just hurting Raven.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Points of Authority - Linkin Park**

Author's Notes: At the end of this one, I'm going to be pulling out some French terms that I'm not terribly familiar with, so I apologize if I use some of them incorrectly.

"I'm afraid, Starfire." Raven said quietly as she walked down the hall beside her alien lover, not trying at all to hide the quaver in her normally calm voice.

"Why, Raven?" Star returned at right around the same volume, though her lower decibel count was more due to the limits of her abused throat, still little better than it had been when she first woke up.

She was fearful as well, most certainly, but had at that point virtually gone beyond "afraid" and straight into shock. Her fear of the coming horrors, coupled with her inability to do anything about their advent, had caused the Tamaranian to emotionally shut down. It was a terrible existence, simply waiting mutely for the inevitable catastrophe that was Anbu. Raven's initial answer caught in her throat as she looked at Starfire in that moment after she spoke. Something was wrong, terribly, horribly wrong, and the dark magus knew it as she stared at her lover, for the first time truly _seeing_ her since they'd met back up outside of her room. Star looked almost as if she were waiting to die, the light and life gone from her emerald on lime green eyes and replaced with resignation, her features drawn and worn in ways that they had not been before.

Raven stopped walking, and after the moment it took Starfire to register that fact, she did as well.

"Dove?" The pet name, so warm and loving just the night before, sounded forlorn and hollow in Raven's ear, then.

"What did I do to you?" The dark magus stared down at the expanse of floor between them as she asked the question, unable to even look at Star's back.

"What are you talking about?" The Tamaranian queried in return as she looked back to Raven, her voice even quieter than before.

"What did I do to you last night, Starfire?" The violet-haired mage reiterated, hands clenching at her sides.

"I do not know what you mean, Raven, you did not do anythi- . . ." The alien's voice abruptly cut off as she found her ashen-skinned lover's arms wrapped around her, the other girl's violet orbs staring up at her and filling with unshed tears.

"What did I do to you last night, Star?" Raven's head fell against Starfire's chest, as the dark magus sought whatever comfort she could gain. "Please, tell me." The crimson-haired alien hesitated a moment, saying nothing at all as she simply stroked the hair of her love, drawing as much solace from the action as it gave the other girl.

Finally, she slipped her fingers from the silky strands of Raven's hair, unable to continue the gesture as she at last spoke the truth.

"You . . . Anbu attacked me last night." Guiltily, Star pulled at the collar of her borrowed cloak and revealed the marks on her neck that she'd been hiding all of that time, only growing more dejected at the horrified gasp that escaped Raven at the sight of them. "She was strangling me, throttling the life out of me, and I believe that the only reason I am still alive is because she did not yet want to actually kill me." Abject terror was the only emotion in Raven's eyes then.

"I hit Beast Boy earlier," she whispered quickly. "The joke he told shouldn't have made me angry enough to do that, I didn't even realize I'd done it until he'd already hit the wall across the room." She pulled away, wrenched herself from Starfire's bosom before she spoke again, though the Tamaranian made sure to keep a tight hold on Raven's wrist, preventing her from escaping. "She can possess me, could possess me right now!" She cried frantically, trying to release herself from the alien's hold. "Don't you understand that!"

"I do, Raven." Starfire said in a voice that was quiet but also steeled. "I understand that she could come out even as I speak to you and hurt me, but that does not matter." She pulled, alien super-strength easily winning out over Raven's far lesser strength, and forced the violet-eyed mage back near to her, embracing her tightly. "I believe in you, Dove, I believe you can stop her if you remain strong, if you fight her." Raven struggled in her grasp, though, unable to enjoy the affectionate hold as she wished she could.

"But if I can't, then you and the others might get hurt, even killed!" With a tremendous shove, Raven managed to separate herself from Starfire. "I won't, I can't take that chance!" Even as she stumbled back and shouted those last words one moment, Raven turned about and broke into a run, taking off down the hall and away from the alien girl.

Before Star could even shout for Raven to stop, though, the mage halted dead in her tracks and simply stood there, stock still. Instinctively, she flew to her dark lover to see what was wrong, not even taking the time to consciously process the implications of something being "wrong" with her.

"Raven . . . ?" She whispered, floating near but still just behind the ashen-skinned girl.

"Raven's not in at the moment, would you like to leave a message?" A voice, at once Raven's and yet not at the same time, answered.

Fearfully, Starfire whimpered,

"wh-who are you?" She knew full well who it was that she spoke to, but she could not help asking regardless, hoping so desperately that she would be proven wrong.

In a flash, Star felt a hand catch her solidly around the throat and then bear her to the nearby wall, slamming her viciously up against it. The hand around her neck was indeed Raven's, but as the second pair of blood red eyes set in her forehead attested to, it and the rest of her body were no longer the dark magus' to control. Now they belonged to her other half.

"I believe you know me as 'Anbu,' unless the little crow has been keeping things from you." She smiled a vicious, bestial smile as she gave the Tamaranian's injured throat a little squeeze, making her cry out in agony. "But what you should really know me as, Starfire dear, is your and Raven's suffering incarnate." Starfire's head shook and her lips moved, but no discernable sound emerged, causing the demon magus' expression to shift with feigned surprise. "Oh, I'm sorry, am I holding you too tightly for you to speak?" Anbu asked tauntingly, those monstrous eyes filled with callous laughter. "Let me fix that, then . . ." Her hand around the alien girl's neck suddenly let go, dropping Star to the floor in a heap.

She didn't remain there long, though, as the dark rage quickly snatched up the frightened Tamaranian's arms and then lifted her up by a one-handed hold on both wrists, smashing her back up against the wall from there. Starfire would have screamed, had she the vocal capacity then, but instead she could only manage something akin to a high-pitched croak, which quickly shifted into a fit of violent coughs. Anbu watched her as she rode through the condition, amused in the same depraved way that a cat appears after cornering a mouse.

"There, now is that better, Starfire dear?" She asked in a mockingly sweet tone, and laughed aloud when Star tried feebly to pin her with a glare. "What's that, I can't seem to hear you?" The quadruple-eyed menace turned her head slightly, angling an ear directly at the Tamaranian, even going so far as to use a finger to shift it completely toward her.

"S- . . . stop . . ." Starfire managed to just more than mouth out, and a harsh, bark of a laugh let her know that she had been heard.

"Stop?" Anbu brought her eyes back to her captive and simply laughed in her face, smirking cruelly once she'd had her fill. "Oh dear, you don't know me very well at all, do you?" Unexpectedly, Starfire felt a sudden, sharp pain in her side and found that Anbu had stabbed her with a suddenly materialized claw. "I do whatever I want, whenever I want, and however I want to do it." She smiled thinly as the alien girl tried and failed to scream when she slowly twisted the claw inside of Star's body.

Surprisingly, she only removed it then, and her hand holding Starfire up by her arms as well. She didn't fall, though, as her hand left behind a shackle of dark energy that held the tortured alien in place. At Starfire's bewildered look, Anbu's face only split with that vicious, inhuman smile.

"Don't feel bad about your ignorance, though, because you and I are about to get very well acquainted." The Tamaranian didn't get the chance to even ask what her torturer meant, didn't even need to, really.

Because the moment she finished speaking, Anbu laid her lips upon Starfire's in a thing that could only be called a "kiss" under the loosest definition of the word. There was no gentility to it as the dark rage plundered all that lay inside the Tamaranian's mouth, the foreign tongue ravaging the poor girl's in ways she had not even imagined possible before. It was a relentless, remorseless assault upon Starfire's very being through the intermediary of her mouth, and spelled out the coming events in no uncertain terms. Anbu held the "kiss," one hand clamped on to the alien girl's jaw to keep her from turning away, even as her free hand began a "tour" of Starfire's body.

It traced its way down her neck, suddenly razor-sharp fingernails leaving tiny, wandering cuts all down it that filled the poor girl with an ecstatic pain that shamed her even as it tried to force pleasured sounds through her nearly broken throat. Unexpectedly, the touch lost its sharpness as it passed between the Tamaranian's breasts, doing so without event at all. As if to make up for her lack of action, though, Anbu slipped from her vicious kiss with Star to instead lick at the blood slowly weeping from the cuts on the girl's neck, actually evicting a choked sound of agony and anguish from the tormented Titan. And, as her traveling hand made its way down the crimson-haired girl's stomach, briefly detouring to play at the wound in her side from earlier, the dark rage spoke.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" She asked simply, letting go of Star's jaw so that she could bring that hand down to trace little circles in the alien's shoulder with a finger, meanwhile still licking at the lacerations and blood on her victim's neck and moving her other hand lower. "And not just physically either, it hurts you in that pretty little heart of yours, right?" She continued, punctuating the word "heart" by suddenly driving her manifested claw into the alien's shoulder.

A spasm went through Starfire's body at that pain, and though no sound came from her throat, she began to sob burning tears as she tried pathetically to pull away from her tormentor and curl up.

"I hope you do love that little crow very much, Starfire dear, because it's only going to make this all the sweeter for me." The Tamaranian's eyes shot open wide then and despite the talon still embedded in her shoulder, she somehow managed to muster the strength for a surprisingly fierce side kick.

It was caught, though, before it managed to strike the demon magus, and Anbu raised her head to look the captive Titan in the eye.

"Do you honestly believe that you can do anything against me, Starfire dear?" She queried with an amused smirk, just before slamming the girl's leg back up against the wall and returning her hand to its former position, slipped up under the crimson-haired alien's skirt.

For a moment, the alien heroine glared at the dark rage with an undeniable fierceness, lime on emerald green eyes fairly burning. But it didn't last, couldn't last when faced with the terrible truth of everything that was arrayed against her, not with the demon usurper raping her in the middle of a hall in Titan's Tower. The fire faded from her eyes and her gaze fell to the floor, away from Anbu.

"R- . . . Ra- . . . Raven . . ." She forced the name out with her renewed tears, calling for her love, and her spirits fell further when the demon magus only laughed hysterically at the call.

"You think that weak little bitch can do **anything** to help you now?" Anbu asked mockingly, pressing herself up tightly against her captive and making the girl shudder and struggle against her bonds as the dark rage's hand went to work. "She's up in my head right now, watching all of this. She may be fighting like hell, and giving me something of a headache doing it, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm still here, and I'm still doing with you as I will." She smiled, that fanged, vicious smile of a beast delighting in the suffering of its prey. "Raven can't save you, Starfire dear." It was at that point that Anbu returned to her previous play, once again licking at the swirling incisions she'd made in Star's neck, while her other hand shifted to the alien girl's chest and joined its twin in torturing her.

She tried to keep struggling, even tried to kick the demon magus again, but after the blood-red eyed demon sank her materialize talons into the offending leg, Starfire simply couldn't muster the will to fight anymore. She sank in her bonds and simply gave in, hoping that it would be over soon. She couldn't bear to consciously consider the fact, then, that Anbu probably wouldn't stop at just that one time.

"That's it, give up and despair, because your little 'dove' isn't going to save you, and neither is anyone else."

"Get away from her right now, Anbu!" The shout snapped Anbu's head up from Starfire's neck and the alien girl's eyes opened wide, just in time to watch Robin's metal bo-staff swing just past her body.

The dark rage just managed to evade the attack by flipping back and away from her captive, landing a few feet from her previous position facing Robin and Star. He stood interposed between the girl and the demon, free arm outstretched to hold the Tamaranian back behind him where she would be "safe." The smile, the cruel, monstrous smile split Anbu's features at the sight, and it was obvious that she was only barely containing an utterly hysterical fit of laughter. Before Robin could actually do as he wanted, though, and demand an explanation for what was amusing the demon magus so, she was gone. It was not as though she had made use of one of Raven's many tricks to defy the laws of physics and all logical thought in order to shift into nothingness or through solid objects, not at all. But rather, she had simply abandoned the scene, leaving behind nothing more than Raven herself.

And the moment her eyes were her own once again as bloody tears traced down her face, the second pair vanishing back into their place beneath her eyebrows, she screamed. The sound was piercing and broken, as if she had been doing so for minutes on end, screeching her vocal cords raw in horror and rage, and it sent chills down the boy wonder's spine. It had a far more severe effect on Starfire, though, striking a cord deep inside of her being with the sheer and unimaginable torment that resonated through the sound. Even so, the girl had just been assaulted quite viciously, and was in no shape at all to be dealing with such powerful emotions, she simply lacked the mental capacity to do so while her mind was still trying to deal with the horrors that had been inflicted on her body just moments ago.

She ran, stumbling and scrambling, down the hall in the exact opposite direction that Raven lay, presumably retreating to her own room, a place where she could feel safe again. The defacto leader of the team did nothing to try and stop her, not really disapproving of that course of action, and also far too fearful of what Anbu or even Raven might be about to do to even consider taking his eyes off of her. Finally, at the limit of her now tangible lungs, the dark magus' scream died and her violet eyes opened, taking in what lay before them. Breathing heavily, she noted Robin's presence and Star's absence, just before catching a flash of brilliant red in the air at the end of the hall, turning the corner. Her urge to hide so great as now clear tears slipped down her cheeks, it barely took a thought to make Raven's powers respond to teleport her from the scene, leaving behind nothing more than a few dark, wet splotches on the floor.

And so Robin was left alone with that, those splotches of tears to his side, and stains of blood on the floor beside him, near the wall. And he couldn't look away from those stains.

* * *

A meeting took place in the dead of night. 

"She has to be stopped, it's become plainly apparent by this point that she's a danger to anyone and everyone around her."

"Dude, calm down, this is Raven we're talking about."

"Yes, the Raven who knocked you across the room for no reason, tried to use the obstacle course to murder Cyborg, and who . . . attacked Starfire, earlier today."

"You act like it's Raven and Raven **alone** that's doing all this."

". . ."

"You and I; hell, all of us; know that there's more to Raven than we'll probably ever know, and you can't just say that it's her that's doing all of this, that ain't right."

"Yeah, Raven hasn't been herself before, and if we didn't blame her then, we shouldn't be blaming her now!"

"Does it really matter if it's her or some other part of her that's doing these things? Will it matter when she kills someone!"

"Raven wouldn't do that!"

"You're not the one who had to fight her off of Starfire!"

"You're just saying that because you care more about Starfire than Raven!"

"And you're still hopelessly in love with Raven, so you're no better!"

"Both of y'all shut the hell up, else I'm going to bust both of your asses!"

". . ."

"We are **not** gonna be treating Raven like just some criminal, she's our friend."

"But- . . . !"

"So we're going to act like the friends we're **supposed** to be, and we're going to help her."

"You mean, like one of those 'intervention' things?"

"Yeah, if that helps you think of it, BB."

"Alright, I can get behind that."

". . ."

"Robin?"

"I'll do it."

"Good, then let's go get ready."

* * *

In the early morning hours, a specter shifted through the halls of the tower, making its way virtually unseen to the tower's ground entrance. It hid in the shadows that still clung with desperate abandon to the walls, despite the early morning light filtering in through windows and other such fixtures, seeking escape with its own fearful impulse. What it found in the lobby of the Titan's Tower, though, was most certainly not an exit. In fact, with the three Titans standing right in the middle of it waiting, it looked far more like a dead end at that point. 

All the lights came on in an instant, casting the form of the dark magus in stark illumination, revealing her haggard, agonized appearance, as well as the death of her final hope in her eyes.

"It's alright, Raven, we're not here to hurt you, we just want to help." Cyborg assured the girl quickly, seeing the fear that filled the emptiness left behind by the deceased hope in those violet orbs.

To add weight to his assurances, he raised his arms high over his head, palms open to show that he held no weapons, looking back to the other two Titans behind him in order to indicate for them to do the same. Beast Boy had no issue with the gesture, but Robin only reluctantly complied, unable to suppress the accusatory stare he was pinning the violet-haired girl with. Still, Raven shied away, her plans to escape and leave all of the people she didn't want to hurt far behind her having been foiled, which left her with no options that her troubled mind could think of. Seeing her distress, Beast Boy approached the mage almost casually, a smile on his face.

"C'mon Rae, it's us, your friends." He said gently, just before laying a hand comfortingly on her shoulder.

Everything went straight to the fiery pits of Hell after that moment. With a terrible sound of talons rending flesh, Beast Boy was lifted high in the air over "Raven," revealing the girl holding him up with just one hand, that appendage surrounded in a claw of crackling black energy which was buried deep in the green-skinned hero's gut. Blood poured from around the raptor-like talons and splattered against her pale face, its color matched almost perfectly with that of her quadruple, demonic eyes, which then fell upon the dumb-struck Cyborg and Robin.

"Hello boys, mind if I come out to play?"

"BB!" Even as Cyborg screamed in horror and outrage, Robin almost immediately went on the attack, leaping straight for the dark rage with staff ready.

Unexpectedly, though, Anbu used Beast Boy's by then limp body to block the strike, the defense followed immediately by a vicious snap kick that sent Robin flying away. Anbu smirked at Cyborg, still in the same spot he'd been when she'd initially appeared and attacked his green-skinned friend.

"C'mon, metal man, don't you want to avenge this poor little bitch?" She asked tauntingly, giving Beast Boy's body a little shake with her claws still embedded deep in his side.

Still, he did not move, looking fearfully to his friend's form, not wanting to make the same mistake Robin had moments ago, especially considering that the injured hero probably couldn't take much more punishment if he was even still alive. Looking positively annoyed with the cybernetically-enhanced youth's caution, Anbu sighed.

"Fine, if you're going to be such a little pus- . . ." She paused for only an instant, unerringly raising a hand to create a telekinetic wall which blocked and then crushed the three birdarangs Robin had tried to secretly launch at her. "-sy about it, I'll get rid of the **dead** weight." An easy flick of the demon magus' arm and a quick twist of her wrist set Beast Boy free from her talons planted in his guts, and sent his body sailing across the room, coming to land face down in a corner, unmoving.

The moment Beast Boy was away from Anbu, Cyborg already had his arm in its sonic cannon configuration, and without the slightest hesitation he fired a shot directly at her, an action which elicited a single barking laugh from the demon as a devilish falchion of surging dark energy materialized in her grasp. She cleaved the attack cleanly in two, deflecting the two halves off harmlessly to the sides and leaving her no worse for the wear, though the pseudo-metal of her blade appeared to be vibrating slightly afterwards.

"Ooooo, that tingled, just a bit." She cooed scandalously, giving a little giggle at the end to rub salt into the mocking wounds she was cutting into Cyborg's ego.

Seemingly losing his temper at that point, the techno-marvel hero charged Anbu outright, but the dark rage was not fooled. She ducked down beneath the swing of Robin's staff, letting Cyborg deal with the attack while she turned about to sweep kick the boy wonder out from behind her. The attack caught him at mid-waist, sweeping him completely around and into his largely metal partner, knocking them both into a heap a few feet to the side of the demon magus.

"Oh please, you expected to take me down when you two haven't even been able to lay a finger on me yet?" Anbu queried the pair with frank disgust, shaking her head disappointedly as she did so.

Both were back on their feet in an instant, sending a flurry of anger-filled attacks at her in a tandem assault that would have floored a lesser combatant in moments. But Anbu was something beyond anything that the two Titans had ever faced before, almost effortlessly evading every attack they threw at her without even bothering to block or deflect any of them. She easily dodged to the side to avoid Cyborg's downward smash punch and then fluidly slid just beneath Robin's paired up kick. In moments, she was laughing aloud while still remaining untouched by their doubled efforts, mocking them with soft caresses and gentle prods made even as she was dodging their attacks like some kind of ethereal, insubstantial entity.

The dark rage didn't even flinch when the both of them suddenly leapt back at the same moment, Robin landing just in front of Cyborg with his bo-staff ready, the cybernetically-enhanced youth already having his sonic cannon raised.

"Sonic Bli- . . ." Their combined call was cut off when Anbu suddenly appeared right before Cyborg, seated on his outstretched arm.

"You know, I think it's about time you boys let me have the offense, since I have been giving it to you for quite a while."She smiled viciously as she raised a dark-energy taloned hand, and the astonished Titan only barely managed to dodge back in time to avoid having his face taken off by those razor claws, instead receiving five deep gouges in the armor of his chest. Anbu landed easily on her feet as the machine-human fusion fell back from her, catching Robin's staff swing in that same taloned hand.

"It's quite sad, really, because your constant sneak attacks indicate you realize how hopelessly outmatched you are in this fight, and yet you still keep trying." With only the faintest of effort, the demon magus snapped the bo at the midpoint between her grip and Robin's, before rounding on the boy wonder, fangs filling her smile with bestial cruelty. "I might have let you run away mostly unharmed if you'd just fled!" Then she pounced on the Titan like some kind of rabid dog, bearing him to the ground and forcing him to fight against her disturbing strength as her claws and fangs sought to sink into his tender flesh.

He struggled valiantly, but still received a number of terrible cuts and rends from her then short but hideously sharp claws, before the dark rage quite suddenly threw them into a roll that traded their places. Robin realized just a second later, as the reverberations of the sonic cannon blast rattled his entire skeletal system, why she had done that. A nice, strong push with both her legs sent Robin's barely conscious form flying to his horrified partner, who scrambled to catch him.

"You two are a complete and total joke, and this is just pathetic now." She stood up easily, all four eyes closed. "In fact, I think it's about time I stopped playing with you and just ended this miserable excuse for a fight." She opened those quadruple, blood-red slits once again, a dark aura forming around her being that shifted and grew like something alive, something hungry.

And then, quite suddenly, a high, feminine voice rang out into the area.

"What is happening down her- . . . Goddess X'Hal!" All eyes came to focus upon Starfire, floating just a foot above the top of the staircase that lead down into the reception area, all six of them.

She looked terrible, still wounded from the events of the day before and obviously still quite emotionally distressed from them as well. And so the horror that filled her being at the sight of the lobby only made matters worse, to the point that the poor Tamaranian looked almost as though she would simply snap.

"What has happened here!" She had seen Beast Boy off to the side, the plush chair beneath him soaked through with blood, as well as Cyborg and Robin, both injured and exhausted, as well as the area in general, torn up from the fight itself.

And there, in the middle of all that, stood Raven, looking as if she were about to die as she stared back at Starfire with impossibly wide, violet-eyes, blood-shot and tear filled. Before anything else could be said, she was gone, her desire to escape completely overwhelming her fear over the effects of her unstable emotions on her teleportation power. Leaving the haggard group simply standing and laying, the lobby and the team in ruins.

* * *

From the fairly quiet, early morning streets of Jump City, Raven came crashing into a darkened alleyway in the heart of the city. Quite literally, in fact, as she ran into several garbage cans just as she turned the corner, making considerable noise as they scattered about and also sent her falling flat on her face on the pavement of that alley. She stumbled back to her feet in an instant, slumping heavily against the brick wall just behind her as her adrenaline fueled strength began to waver. It was all just so horrible, everything that she had done, how she'd hurt Starfire several times by that point, betraying and failing her in almost every way possible. She'd killed Beast Boy, she could still see far too vividly the image of Anbu planting her talons deep in the poor boy's side, could still see and feel his blood all over her hand and face, stains that would never go away. She'd betrayed them all, failed them all because there was absolutely nothing she could do to hold Anbu back, she was simply too weak. 

And that demon, Raven knew exactly what she wanted, knew she wanted nothing more than to torture every last one of her friends until they would whole-heartedly beg her for death, at which point she would leave to their inevitable deaths at their own hands, if they still possessed the appendages, or those of others years later. Anbu wanted to make all of them suffer, just to hurt her, just to make her pay for all the years that she has been in control of their body. She couldn't bear to know that, couldn't bear to let Anbu do that to the others, except that there was nothing she could do to stop the beast. It was at that point that Raven realized that she was bleeding from her own nose, an injury caused by her fall of moments before. She reached up to touch a finger to the tiny trickle running from her left nostril, brining it away so that she could look at the redness with her own eyes, her lifeblood.

Then, quite suddenly, she had her wrists set side by side, curving daggers of dark energy materializing in the grasp of each hand, their blades angled downward and to the side. After only a moment to prepare, she drew them apart with vicious force, slashing her wrists even as it caused her to throw one arm up high and the other out to the side, one leg raising to maintain her balance as the greater force exerted by her right hand threatened to topple her.

And thus, she began alonge arabesque, her leotard quickly becoming painted into a beautiful crimson that shined even in the faint light. Then, en arrie're, she slowly shifted into balance' for several steps, before finding a bottle beneath her foot. She threw into a pirouette, flinging exquisite flowers of brilliant crimson out onto the stage in every direction, before slipping back and out of the twirl. This touched her against a nearby trash can and its sharp contents, reflexively springing her into a pas ballonne' across the floor, landing retire' against the opposite wall with one leg still drawn up. She rocked back from it, once again retreating balance' en arrie're until she came to rest her back against the other wall. From there, fondue, she came to be seated there, her dance completed.

And as her torso fell to rest on her still raised knee, the dark dove wings of her cloak flying about her just slightly for that moment, great blooms of crimson sprouted about her sides, petals slowly slipping in a thin trail to the nearby drain, sucking inexorably away from her.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Hell Song - Sum 41**

Robin stood in the lobby once again, not long after the grisly scene had played out. He was patched up by then, bandages crisscrossing his chest and wrapped thickly around his arms, turning red around their centers as the blood still slipping from his various wounds was soaked up by them. He was "carefully," if that word could be applied to his particular method, preparing the floor of the area to be fixed, using a combination of various tools, including several very energetically thrown birdarangs, to separate the broken sections of the floor from the unbroken. After he moved each section, he would then take the time to neatly dispose of the pieces, first breaking them down into smaller, often unnecessarily so, pieces before depositing them in the waste bin he had with him. It was while he was at this work that Starfire came to him, floating silently up behind the boy wonder with considerable trepidation.

"Robin, I . . ." Without missing a beat, Robin moved on to a far section of the wall, which had taken a hit when Anbu deflected Cyborg's sonic cannon blast, the masonry crushed inward by the impact.

When Starfire followed, the de facto leader simply moved on to the opposite wall and its identical battle scar without even allowing her to speak that time. Still, the alien girl persisted, following him about the vaulted entryway until Robin finally stopped in his tracks and turned to face her, the slightest hint of anger contorting his features into a far less friendly mask than usual.

"No, Starfire, we can't." He said without preamble, answering the crimson-haired Tamaranian's unasked question.

She refused to simply accept that answer, though.

"But Robin, we must go and look for Raven!" She looked plaintively to the place she had seen the dark magus standing, moments before she pulled her Houdini. "You saw her before she disappeared, she looked so afraid and hurt and . . ." The alien looked away, just slightly, disliking having to admit her fears aloud, afraid that doing so might somehow increase their likelihood of becoming reality. "I do not know what she will do in that state." Robin would have none of it, though, his ire only showing through all the more strongly on his face for her words.

"Oh, I saw her alright." He moved past Starfire, grabbing her arm in a steely grip in order to drag her along with him. "I saw her try to **disembowel** Beast Boy on this spot, spilling his blood there." He jabbed a finger fiercely at the splatters on the floor before where he had brought them, looking directly into the Tamaranian's emerald on lime green eyes as he did so, making sure she did not look away.

When she said nothing in response to that, he forced her to follow him yet again, this time to the cushioned chair several feet to the side of their previous position. Grimly, he picked up the seat cushion from it, removing a birdarang from his belt with an easy motion that moved flawlessly into one that cut the cushion in two, spilling its blood-soaked contents at Starfire's feet. The bundle of padding landing with a sickeningly wet sound, a distinctly sanguine sound that could not have been made by water-soaked pads.

"That is Beast Boy's blood, which drained out of him and into this cushion not-so-slowly after **Raven** ripped him open and tossed him here." The poor alien girl looked horrified, transfixed for a moment by the pile of bloody cloth and foam rubber.

Eventually, though, she brought her eyes back to his, and though they were filled with fear and guilt, he could still see it coming.

"But Rob-AH!" Her words were cut off when the boy wonder gave her arm a particularly strong squeeze, painfully strong, before heading off up the stairs that led out of the lobby at just short of a running pace.

It wasn't long before they reached the Medical Wing, at that speed, and from there Robin took her to the observation hall. Starfire gasped aloud when they reached it.

"Beast Boy . . ." A plethora of machines were all crowded in around the small hero's bedside, a seemingly endless series of tubes, electrodes, and various other implements attached to and running out of his body at any given place as he lay very still upon the mat. Off the side, Cyborg was hard at work with a number of different control consoles, presumably working to keep the entire system perfectly calibrated and working at maximum efficiency. Looking at Beast Boy himself, his far too pale green skin and the huge bandage covering his pierced side, Starfire could only assume that Cyborg was working so hard because even the slightest drop in the effectiveness of all those machines could mean Beast Boy's demise.

"If it weren't for all of Cyborg's advanced medical tech, Beast Boy would be **dead** right now from the wound that **Raven** gave him." The Tamaranian wrenched herself bodily from the figurative pit of despair that she was quickly falling into, shaking her head vehemently.

"But you do not understand, Robin!"

"Not another word, Starfire!" The sound of Robin's suddenly raised voice was enough on its own to shock her into silence, much less with the command it carried with it. "We're not going out to look for Raven now, and even when we do, it won't be to bring her back." At that, spoken with an again quiet and even tone, Starfire tilted her head quizzically, confused as to what the boy wonder meant. "When we go out looking for her, it'll be to take her down, just like any other criminal." Robin turned his back on Starfire then; short cape flying behind him with a certain severe quality that made it clear the discussion was over.

Defeated and frightened by Robin's object lesson in the things Anbu had done, Starfire did not try to challenge the team's leader any further, instead letting her shoulders slump forward in saddened surrender. She made her way in somber silence to Raven's room, to **their** room, and moments after arriving, she collapsed in their bed. At least her dove's scent was there in the bed, even if Raven wasn't herself. Tears came to her eyes as she clutched at the pillow from Raven's side of the bed, shifting over just slightly into that space."Please be safe, dove . . ."

* * *

**  
**Along the morning streets of Jump City walked a girl. Of only average height and indeterminate build and weight, due to her heavy and largely oversized clothing, the girl was almost something of an oddity. A so called "goth," she wore a monochromatic ensemble of clothing made up of a heavy, torn up, black leather jacket that sat on her shoulders, its oversized nature causing it to mostly hide her white tank top, emblazoned with the slogan "kill yourself" in black lettering, even though it was left unbuttoned and open. It matched fairly well; by her standards, at least; with the baggy and similarly damaged cargo pants she wore, which hung low around heavy leather boots that made her steps rather loud and lumbering. Then again, that mattered little when the endless metal clasps of the outfit were constantly clanging against one another in a horrendous cacophony. Her face was covered entirely in make-up, mostly a white face paint that made her skin look impossibly pale, and also contrasted starkly with her black lipstick, heavy black-eyeliner and her dark but still sparkling violet eye shadow. The theme followed, her hands bearing the same white coloration and black polished nails, and in addition she had quite a few rings pierced through her right ear in almost every part imaginable, though the rest of her body and even her other ear did not bear similar ornaments. She had dark brown eyes and hair that was obviously dyed from the same color to a pitch black and that had then been styled into a curious arrangement: short and somewhere between frizzy and spiky, making her look almost like a human dandelion. As the backpack slung over her shoulder attested to, she was on her way to school, one of the many patches stitched onto it giving her name, "Jasmine." 

She walked along the sidewalk on an instinctive path toward the institution she'd been going to for countless days over the course of her life, her mind elsewhere. She wondered if the unusual shade of eye shadow she'd put on would be enough to get that one cutey, the one with the mohawk, to notice her. She thought about how she'd purposefully avoided doing her math homework the night before, because she hated it. She wondered when her parents were finally just going to get a divorce and stop keeping her up into the night as they screamed at each other. She considered if she should bother to suggest that her group try out another satanic ritual, considering how much money the last had cost, especially getting a hold of that goat. She thought about how much longer she'd have to put up with the foolishness of school, considering how little degrees and formal schooling were starting to mean in the society. She mused that the gunshot she thought she heard probably came from a few blocks away, so she was most likely in no danger. She wondered if Raven and the rest of the Titans would go to investigate it, but doubted that they had the time to check out something as petty as a gunshot. And she thought, as the cold, morning wind began to blow through the streets, 'what would happen if I simply let the wind take me, blowing me wherever it would?'

It was during this contemplative state known as adolescence that she passed a certain specific alley in the area of Jump City. It was in disarray, almost more so than even a normal alley should have been, trashcans littered about and overturned as if something had crashed through them. And, slumped off to one side of the alley and a little ways away from the street, there was a dark figure within its confine, presumably the person who had messed up the area. At first glance, she simply assumed it was a sloshed out bum or some junkie passed out from using just a bit too much of their stuff. A second look, though, let Jasmine catch sight of a blood trail leading back to the wrists of the huddled figure. With a cruel smirk, the young girl started to make her way into the alleyway, reaching into her bag to get out her cell phone.

"Jeez, some people can be really stupid, doing this shit in broad daylight." She commented with a hint of venom as she came to stand across from the figure, looking down on it. "Hell, I think I'm just going to call up my friends so they can laugh at you too." She chuckled darkly, raising her black-cased cell phone up so she could look at the keypad. "I mean, honestly, look at what you're dressed up in." She taunted, kicking at the hem of the dark blue cloak draped over the individual's back with her boot. "What are you, some kind of D&D reject killing yourself because your favorite character died?" Jasmine crouched down to get a better look at the face of her victim. "C'mon, how pathetic can you g- . . ." The words froze in the girl's throat then, as she finally did get a better look at her mark, discerning both its gender and identity in an instant.

It was Raven, the Teen Titans Raven.

"Oh . . . oh my god!" Jasmine screamed upon the realization, stumbling back from the dark magus' unconscious form in shock and surprise. As soon as her wits returned to her, she immediately went to work dialing the universal emergency number. "Oh god, oh god, oh god . . ." She murmured over and over again as she dialed and then waited for the call to go through.

"This is 911 emergency services, what is the nature of your emergency?" A calm voice asked once the call finally connected, but Jasmine wasn't in much of a state to be cool and collected at that point.

"I . . . Raven . . . blood . . . oh my god . . ." She said in a confused jumble, her brain filled with too much turmoil to let the words come out as a coherent sentence.

"Miss, please calm down and speak slowly, I can't help you if I can't understand you." The operator replied in true fashion, having been trained on how to deal with such situations.

The school girl took was she was told to heart, and though she continued to look at the bleeding body before her, she managed to calm herself after a few breaths.

"I- . . . It's Raven, of the Titans, I found her b- . . . bleeding from her wrists in an alley."

"And your location," queried the operator on the other end, taking the whole thing in stride.

"East . . . 76th street." Jasmine murmured, managing to remember the street marker she'd passed earlier.

"Alright, I have a unit dispatched to your location. Please situate yourself where you'll be more easily visible to the rescue personnel." The girl nodded slightly before the phone simply slipped from her grasp.

She did nothing more than stare at Raven's prone form for several moments, then. Finally, though, she noticed that blood was still running from the Titan's wounds, and she knew she had to do something. Jasmine fell to her knees before the violet-haired mage, looking frantically for anything that could be used as bandages and a tourniquet. Her eyes fell to her own tank top after looking over everything else, and when it came down to a question of her clothing or Raven's life, there was no contest. She tore the entire garment into strips in moments, ignoring her then topless status as she went to work first dressing the dark magus' wounds, and then constricting the blood flow to her wrists so that she would lose as little as possible. All the while, Jasmine whispered various phrases to Raven that all had the same meaning.

"Please don't die . . . you can't die . . ." Once that was completed, the girl did her best to gently drag Raven out onto the sidewalk, holding the girl's arms aloft to keep them above her heart.

She scared quite a few pedestrians by doing so, but didn't notice, instead just looking frantically about for any sign of the ambulance she'd called.

"It's going to be okay . . . you're going to be okay . . ." She murmured to Raven as she waited, though the words were actually meant to soothe the girl's own out of control fear, rather than anything of the unconscious mage's.

The ambulance arrived a minute later, paramedics swarming the girl and her heroine, taking the latter from her and quickly packing the injured girl in the back of their vehicle. It was only a moment later that they were off, Jasmine running as fast as she could manage after the car.

* * *

The ringing of the view screen's call alert had brought Robin to the communications room of the tower. It was not a call he had been expecting, per se, but he had more than a few ideas as to what it could be about, and because of that, he steeled himself for the worst before switching on the screen. 

"Titan's Tower here, what's the emergency?" He asked before the video link had even fully established.

When it had, he found himself staring into the face of a rather typical nurse, just around middle-age with a haggard expression and a stare that was more than just a little world weary.

"No emergency," she responded, just before a patient was rushed down the hall behind her with a team of doctors and nurses scrambling over him, "for you guys, at least."

"Then why the call," Robin asked, though one of the possibilities he'd prepared himself for already covered the situation he expected to hear about.

"We've got one of yours here, the cloaked girl." The nurse told him, bringing up a clipboard. "No wounds or injuries beyond the ones that got her in here." Robin raised an eyebrow as he continued to look up at the nurse's image.

He'd dealt with medical professionals before and he knew that they very rarely wasted time beating around the bush, always being so pressed for it in a dangerous place like Jump City.

"And . . . ?" He prodded, also disliking the idea of wasting time dancing around the actual issue.

With a sigh, the nurse dropped the clipboard, no longer trying to hide her face behind it.

"We think she slit her wrists." Robin's jaw squared and he nodded just slightly.

"How is she now?"

"She's in stable condition, a girl found her soon enough that she didn't lose too much blood." She looked down then, presumably to the clipboard she'd dropped just a moment before. "We've got her restrained and under observation now, as a precaution." Robin nodded again.

"I'll be down there as soon as possible to pick her up; you just make sure she doesn't go anywhere." The nurse was silent for a few moments, before finally nodding her agreement.

But, before Robin could cut the link, she spoke again.

"What's going on, kid?" Without any hesitation, the boy wonder simply answered, "Titan's business, m'am." That said, he shut down the link and immediately turned to leave.

As he made his way out into the hallway, though, he caught sight of something odd on the floor just beside the door frame. It was a small length of thin, white thread. It was at that moment that Starfire came floating around a corner down the hall, heading Robin's way. And she was carrying a spool of white thread.

"Robin," she called as she approached, though it was hard to catch due to her still injured throat. "I heard the alert, what is happening?"

"Nothing Star, just another prank call from a bunch of stupid kids." Robin responded without even an instant's hesitation, and he was unsurprised to see anger flare in the Tamaranian's emerald on lime green eyes at his utterly false answer.

Neither said anything more for several more moments, until Starfire could no longer take it.

"We must go find Raven!" She declared as loud as she could, which was just a little more than a normal speaking voice.

Robin looked at the girl as if a parent looking upon her foolish, slow to learn child, even taking on the same tone as he spoke.

"Starfire, I've already told you once, we will not be going out looking for Rav- . . ." Starfire cut him off, though, indignation and simple anger coloring her voice.

"Robin, months ago I said that I would take responsibility for Raven's actions, and promised that Anbu would not become a danger." She looked hard into the eyes that she knew lay beneath his mask. "If you are going to treat Raven like a criminal, then I am equally responsible, and must be 'taken down' as well." Robin's face went stony at the alien girl's proclamation, his features unreadable, and he said absolutely nothing in response for a few, long moments.

Finally, he spoke.

"It was Anbu that did those things, not Raven, so you bear no guilt." He spoke almost robotically, and Starfire frowned deeply.

"I cannot let you act as the 'politicians' of your world do, Robin." She said, sounding truly saddened. "You cannot say that when only an hour ago, you were adamant that Raven was just as much at fault for what Anbu did as the monster herself is." Robin didn't flinch, didn't react to Star's perfect counter, at first.

Eventually, though, he sighed and gently put a hand on the girl's shoulder.

"I know, it's just that . . ." He looked to be struggling with himself, even biting his own lip. "I just don't want you to blame yourself, especially if Beast Boy doesn't make it." Shock filled Starfire's expression at Robin's words, which was quickly replaced by guilt at the knowledge that Beast Boy's endangered state really was her fault, in large part.

The Tamaranian hung her head in shame, though notably far more so than she would have for the amount she felt, and Robin gently patted her on the back.

"It's alright, Star, everything's going to be okay." He took a gentle hold of the girl's shoulders then, angling her back the way she came. "Why don't you go check on Beast Boy, maybe say 'hello' if he's conscious now?" The boy wonder offered, and Starfire nodded slightly, heading off toward the stairs.

Even as she did so, though, the fire-haired alien had every intention of following Robin's R-Cycle to Raven's location when it left the building. It hurt her deeply to admit it, but Starfire no longer felt that she could trust Robin.

* * *

It was darkness all around her. She wasn't scared, though, because the darkness was far too familiar by that point. She'd lived in it forever, so why would she be frightened to be among it again? She had taken a vacation in the light, yes, but that didn't change where she'd come from. Little Raven, always alone in her dark little world, no one else there but her and her endless grief . . . except that she wasn't really alone there. She knew this in an instant; the solemn silence of the place was gone. She looked about frantically, seeking the alien presence in her place, in her safe darkness. It had to be Anbu, come to hurt her and steal her body. She heard a sound and her sword was already in hand as she turned to face it, stabbing out at where its source. 

It was Starfire, she'd stabbed Starfire right through the heart, her beautiful eyes going impossibly wide as the alien girl felt the blade slice into her. She tried to say something, but it never came out because then she was dead, slumping against Raven lifelessly. And, past Starfire's form, she could see Anbu simply standing there, smiling like the monster she was.

"I'm so proud of you, 'sis'," Anbu began without approaching, simply standing there and smiling. "You're growing up to be _just like me_." And, in that moment, Raven felt herself smile the same vicious smile as Anbu.

She couldn't scream, even though she wanted to.

* * *

And then she was awake, lying strapped to a hospital bed. For the first few moments, Raven was completely disoriented, the harsh florescent lighting blinding her while the sterile, chemical smell of the place overwhelmed her olfactory sense. Then, quite suddenly, she gained a focal point as a voice from somewhere beside her spoke up. 

"I never before thought that I would find any superhero, much less you, bleeding to death in an alley." The voice had come from a girl sitting in a chair at the side of the room Raven was in.

It had no tone of mocking or taunting intent, but Raven could not help the bitterness that rose in her own throat.

"Well, things rarely seem to go the way you'd like them to, you know?" She also couldn't seem to help the hostile glare she was pinning the girl with.

Jasmine, her make-up smudged and runny from tears previously shed, shied away from the angry gaze, but still spoke again.

"But superheroes are supposed to be able to do anything, especially when it comes to making things turn out right . . ." She gained a little courage as she spoke the words, actually able to meet Raven's gaze by that point. "So, maybe you dying wasn't the right way for things to go." The dark magus only grew even angrier with the girl's words, though.

"People always expect us to be perfect!" She growled, struggling against her wrist bonds in an attempt to gesture. "They act like we can't have problems of our own, that we can't ever be weak!" The young goth girl simply watched Raven breathe after her tirade, waiting until the mage had calmed down somewhat before she spoke again.

"But that's why I always looked up to you, Raven." She blushed just a little at the admission, the color showing through the smudges and holes in her face paint. "You were just like me. You had your problems, but you were able to deal, to still have friends, to still be happy."

"Superheroes are just as fallible as anyone else, girl, we make mistakes because we're still peo- . . ." Raven stopped herself mid-sentence, her eyes drawn to her now "clean" hands, even though she couldn't really see them past the leather restraints.

After what she had done, she knew that she didn't qualify as a person; the memory of that smile forming on her face assured her of that. Jasmine watched her for those few moments and she just knew what Raven was thinking.

"Raven, no, you are a person." The dark magus did not even look at her consul before she spoke, her eyes not moving from whatever she perceived on her hands.

"I'm a monster." And though the voice was monotonous, betraying no emotion, the fact that the table beside Raven's bed, and everything atop it as well, was shattered into virtual splinters by telekinetic energy showed that Raven was not anywhere near at peace.

Frightened just a little by the unexpected destruction of the furniture, Jasmine let silence reign for a time, trying to compose herself and come up with a different plan of "attack," as it were. Eventually, she rather unexpectedly scooted her chair _closer_ to Raven, right up to her bedside, in fact. At first, Raven was simply shocked by the gesture, and then she did her best to shy away from the girl, fearing what Anbu might make her do if the girl came within reach. Jasmine didn't seem to notice at all, instead just starting right into her story.

"You know, I used to get beat up a whole lot at school, sometimes every day of the week." She offered openly, catching Raven's attention a little. "That's why I went goth, safety in numbers and all of that stuff." She smiled, just a bit. "Except that once I was in I kind of started to like it, though I can't really get behind most of that piercing stuff, hurts too much." She looked at Raven, seeing that the dark magus was watching her with a visibly perplexed gaze. "I still get beat up sometimes, when I can't stick with the rest of the group, but it's not as bad anymore, now that I belong somewhere." Jasmine finished, showing a bruise on her upper arm almost as if it were a badge of honor.

When Raven didn't really respond at all, the odd girl decided to try again.

"And mom and dad are always fighting, screaming and throwing things at each other cause dad . . ." In large part, Raven stopped hearing the girl at that point, so confused was she by what was happening.

Though it seemed insane, Raven thought that the girl might actually be trying to make her feel better by empathizing, by sharing her own problems. It was a pathetic attempt, considering the scope of Raven's crimes, but it still managed to touch her heart that the girl was trying. It was at that point that Jasmine finished her second story, mentioning that her parents were most likely going to get a divorce, because she didn't believe her father could get over his drinking problem. Raven smiled, just faintly, and spoke, unable to resist her need for company, for someone to talk to so she wouldn't feel all alone in the darkness.

"What is your name, I never got it?" The goth girl smiled widely as she finally got a reaction, especially one so positive.

"Jasmine, Jasmine Stevenson." Raven nodded, almost serenely, quite a feat considering her odd positioning from being strapped down to the bed.

"That's a pretty name; I can understand why you wouldn't change it." The girl smiled and blushed, embarrassed.

"Yeah, a lot of the other people in my group go by different names because they don't like theirs." She looked up just a little, and then hid her face in her hands as she flushed a deeper shade. "I . . . just couldn't, I liked my name too much." Rather suddenly, Jasmine simply held still, as if unexpectedly frightened by something.

"Jasmine?" Raven murmured, concerned by the girl's sudden change in behavior.

"Is . . . would it be okay if I . . . asked you some questions?" The young girl asked her super heroic acquaintance nervously, knowing Raven to be a rather private person who might take offense at such a question.

The dark magus only smiled and would have reached out to gently pat the girl on the head if she hadn't been strapped down.

"Ask anything you like, I don't mind." Jasmine's face lit up at the confirmation, and she didn't hesitate to launch right into her little "interrogation."

"What's it like being a superhero?"

"Well . . . it's very hard most of the time, you have to make a lot of difficult decisions and face impossible odds rather often." She looked down for just a moment, remembering all the terrible battles she and the Titans had faced.

Then she smiled and looked up again.

"It's easier, though, if you have friends to help you fight, to be there when things get tough, so you don't have to carry everything all by yourself." Jasmine nodded, understanding perfectly.

"Belonging somewhere makes everything easier." She added, and though Raven nodded in response she also swallowed against the small something in her throat, realizing that she no longer belonged anywhere.

When Raven said nothing more following that, Jasmine assumed she was done answering and moved on to a question a little closer to her heart.

"Do you remember saving me once?" The violet-eyed mage blinked, not having been expecting that kind of a question, and then she searched her memory as deeply as she could.

Ultimately, though, her search came up blank.

"I'm sorry, but I don't." Jasmine's expression fell, but she quickly covered it with a smile.

"It's alright; I actually looked really different back then. It was when Plasmus attacked that high school football game, after Starfire flew off when everyone laughed at her. You shielded me when Plasmus did the disgusting toxic spit bomb thing." The girl recounted, carefully watching Raven's expression as she did so.

Finally, it dawned on Raven with an almost literal flash of light.

"Wait, you were that cheerleader!" The dark magus was honestly shocked, staring at the girl before her and comparing that to the somewhat vague image in her memory.

"Yeah, I wasn't really popular; I just had the moves to be a cheerleader and a mom more than willing to bitch at the administration until I got in." Jasmine blushed even as she smiled, but then continued when Raven only stared at her with no response. "I was before I went goth."

"Ah!" Raven gasped as understanding hit her like a sack of potatoes, before both she and Jasmine had a good laugh at the idea of an openly goth cheerleader.

Once that subsided, the darkly dressed girl decided to move on again.

"What about the other Titans, what are they like?" The dark magus had been expecting that question, certainly, but she still couldn't help but flinch.

"They . . . they're like family." She began, having a hard time pushing the initial part out, as she knew that probably wouldn't be true anymore. "Beast Boy is . . . just so annoying sometimes that it makes you want to strangle him. But, other times, he's the only one out of us all who can keep on hoping, and even if his jokes are never funny, it's just the thought that helps." Jasmine nodded, thinking of her younger brother as Raven spoke. "Cyborg is our . . . 'go-to-guy,' I guess. He's the one who's always there if you need him, ready to do whatever you need just because he's your friend. Sure, he can be a little childish when he's with Beast Boy, but he at least knows when it's time to get serious." Jasmine smiled happily, thinking of big brother. "Robin . . . Robin's the leader, he's the sure-footed one of us, the one without all the doubt the rest of us carry around, without hesitation. He's the one that can get things done because he never needs to question himself or his motives."

'Dad,' Jasmine though in silence, as she knew her father to be very much like that when he wasn't on the sauce.

Then Raven fell silent, causing the other girl to gently prompt her,

"and Starfire?" Raven swallowed hard, struggling within herself for a few moments before she was finally able to speak.

"Starfire is . . . the kindest, most gentle hearted person I have met in my life. She's intelligent, brave, caring and she . . ." Raven swallowed again, trying to choke down the feelings rising up in her. "She sees through everything, all the cloaks, the airs, the lies, the brave fronts, sees through it all, but doesn't care." The violet-haired mage shook just a little, wishing she could bring her hands up to hide what she knew was coming. "She'll hold you, she'll just hold you without saying anything, and be there when you've got no more strength to go on." They came then, burning tears that seared their way down the mage's cheeks. "She was the light in my darkness, my shooting star to wish on for a better future, for hope when I had none left." And then she just cried, sobbed out her anguish for all that had happened, all that she had lost to a demon she couldn't fight, couldn't beat.

Jasmine said nothing for that time, simply staring down into her lap. Eventually she spoke up, though she did not raise her gaze.

"You know, you had your problems, but you had someone, and even if she was a girl you still had that." As the words came from the girl sitting beside her bed, Raven's tears slowed while confusion spread through her mind. "And . . . and you . . . you were strong and courageous . . . even when everyone else couldn't possibly be . . ." Jasmine was crying too, then, and Raven confusion only grew.

Suddenly, Jasmine looked straight to Raven's, eyes red from the tears she had shed.

"Why, Raven? Why did you do it? Why were you there, bleeding to death in that alley?" She cried out, wanting to know why the woman she idolized, the woman she cared about had been there.

For several, eternal moments, Raven simply stared at Jasmine, fearing what response the girl would have if she told her, that the girl might run away and leave her alone if she did. But the violet-eyed mage saw the pleading look in Jasmine's eyes; saw her simple need to know. So she told her everything, sparing no detail or fact from the telling, no matter how much it wrenched Raven's heart to speak of them. And, at the end of her confession, the school girl did nothing more than hug Raven. She hugged her as tightly as she could manage, and just cried with the magus. After a time, she whispered into the ashen-skinned girl's ear,

"it's not your fault, Raven." She tried to hold the mage even tighter, but the thought was not lost on the distraught hero, despite Jasmine's failure. "None of that is your fault, none of it at all. You're not a monster, and you've got to fight." Unexpectedly, the sound of the door to the room opening reached the ears of both girls, and they simultaneously realized that, after hearing her confession as well, the orderlies had probably decided that Raven was too dangerous to let anyone near. "Starfire needs you, I'm sure of it, and you have to go back to he-AH!" Jasmine cried out as she was roughly pulled away from Raven by two large men. "You're not a monster, you're not!" She nearly screamed as she was forced from the room. Meanwhile, an orderly with a syringe made his way carefully towards Raven, until his large body completely filled her vision.

* * *

The room was empty and quite a mess as well. Even just standing in the doorway, Robin could tell there had been a struggle, considering that everything in it was either overturned, damaged, or outright destroyed. 

"I'm sorry, sir, we heard what she'd done and tried to separate her from the girl visiting her, but she put up a fight and escaped." Robin sighed and shook his head.

"It's alright, I'll find her again." He assured before turning about to leave, allowing him to look at the nurse he'd been speaking to, the same nurse that had called the Tower earlier.

"Thank god, I don't feel safe with a murderer like that running about." Without another word, the boy wonder headed off, pulling his communicator from his belt as he did so.

He switched it to homing mode, and smiled as he found a signal. His search would be made even easier by the fact that he'd managed to lose Starfire's tail quite a ways back, letting her go off to deal with what might have _looked _like a mugging to her, but was actually just a prostitute and her John. He'd find Raven and then he'd . . .

"Dammit." Robin muttered under his breath as he stepped out of the hospital, before looking to his communicator again.

Then he was off to find Raven and . . . he didn't know what.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6  
"I'm Still Here - Verticle Horizon" **

Author's Notes: I apologize for the lateness of this chapter, but I have quite a few lovely things getting in the way when it comes to life (for example, the fun of finding a nice job). Regardless, though, the fic **will** be completed, it just might take me a little longer . . .Anyways, hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'll do my best to get the next one out within the usual week.

A ridge formed of various junk autos, scrap metal and other trashed odds and ends was his final stop. It overlooked a valley, defined by the walls of garbage surrounding it on all sides, and somehow Robin doubted that the feature was a natural occurrance. More than likely Raven had used her powers to hsape the dump to suit her needs, giving her a hidden place away from prying eyes. Even then, he could see her moving through the small make-shift campsite that had been set up in that valley. She was putting the finishing touches on the sleeping shelter, welding the last strip of scrap metal onto the structure to make it a suitible refuge from the harsh elements she might well have to weather. Beyond that, the site was little more than a drum with a fire burning in it and a make-shift table, but all things considered, it was a pretty impressive accomplishment for a few hour's work.

As Robin watched from his high vantage point, Raven continued to move about, apparently intent on making another addition to the space. From what he could tell, she had not yet sensed his presence which meant he had the element of surprise, and that thought made his bo-staff come almost instantly to hand, almost of its own volition it seemed. But the boy wonder quelled that urge, knowing that course of action to be far too dangerous. He hadn't forgotten how easily Anbu had defeated both Cyborg and himself, and as much rage as he had over what had been done to Beast Boy and Starfire, he simply couldn't deny that it would be unbelievably foolish to try and capture Raven then. If Anbu showed herself, he would be a dead man.

So it was with no small resistence that Robin put away his weapon and left the trash ridge. He'd head back to the tower and get Cyborg and Starfire, then he'd be able to take Raven down, he just needed help. That was it, just help.

* * *

It was not long after Robin lef the scene, though, that another figure came up that very same ridge, one with fiery red hair and anxious emerald on lime green eyes. It was Starfire, having been able to elude Robin's detection simply through the fact that she didn't follow him. After realizing her mistake in roughing up the man soliciting that badly-dressed woman's services, Starfire also realized that Robin had intentionally lead her by that area in order to lose her, had tried and succeeded in shaking her off his trail. Luckily for the naive Tamaranian, he had not quite lost her soon enough and thanks to what she had overheard of his phone conversation, she knew Raven was at a hospital. 

Even in a place as dangerous as Jump City, there was still only one hospital per fairly large section of the city. She found the correct one just in time to catch sight of Robin leaving empty-handed and kept that visual contact long enough to see him pull out his Titan's Communicator. That was all it took to remind Starfire of the secondary function of their communicators: tracking devices. Since she had no longer needed to follow Robin, she had taken a more scenic route to Raven's position in order to keep from being spotted by the boy wonder.

And thus she was there then, standing on the ridge overlooking Raven's camp, and even though she couldn't see her love moving about in it, the Tamaranian was certain the other girl was just sleeping in her shelter. With a happiness that easily bouyed her form into the air, Starfire floated down from the ridge to the dirt floor of the valley in the trash heap and entered the camp with her eyes alight. She looked about for any sign of Raven's presence and found many: the kettle of water boiling over the fire, waiting to be used in the creation of some soothing herbal tea, the books stacked inside of Raven's shelter, magical books that Raven had spent more time researching in than Star could even comprehend, and the clutter of various stones on the make-shift table, special stones Raven used in the treatment of her; and sometimes Starfire's too, even; chakras. Even beyond the actual physical, individual features of the area, the whole of it simply screamed of her dove, of Starfire's love being there.

As the alien girl thoroughly searched the whole of the small camp, the feelings of Raven's presence did not diminish, even though she was not finding the other girl. And as this became all the more overpowering of a sense, Star's spirits began to fall, because the longer she looked the more the crimson-haired alien felt that Raven was actually there, but was hiding from her. After extensively searching the whole area, Starfire returned to the camp center, pulling her communicator from her belt to check where Raven's tracking signal claimed her to be. For the single second it was there, the blip showed Raven to be exactly where the Tamaranian expected her to be, in the camp. Then it was gone, completely and utterly, from the screen, blocked by some "unknown" force.

In silence, Starfire put the device away and looked about slowly, biting her lip in anxiousness.

"Please Raven, show yourself, I mean you no harm . . ." She began very evenly, though her voice had already begun to waver by the end of the sentence.

When no response came, the alien continued.

"I . . . I am sorry . . . for what happened at the tower . . ." She looked down, ashamed. "I did not . . . I did not mean to seem so scared . . . I just could not believe what lay before my eyes." She looked around again, desperately searching for any sign that the magus was going to bring herself into the light, where Star could see her.

She found no such manifestation. The Tamaranian girl clutched her hands before her chest, barely holding back tears.

"I . . . I am . . . I did not . . . I . . ." She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and the tears fell. "I did not mean . . . to let her touch me like that . . ." Her voice was so tiny then and yet it had an utterly profound effect on the area, as even the very air itself stopped in place, as if time had frozen in horror.

And, for the barest moment, Starfire felt as though there was something behind her that was reaching out to touch her shoulder, but the instant she looked back to see it, the feeling vanished. Nothing similar followed it and eventually Star simply stood up and flew away, even despite the fact that her power did not seem to function well as she cried her eyes out, making her flight slow and erratic in its pattern. Once she was nothing more than a dot in the midday sky, Raven rose up form the ground in her shadow, watching Starfire go.

Then she too cried.

* * *

The tears had given way to meditation not long ago, as Raven did her best to bring herself under control. 

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos . . ." This meant, most of all, dealing with her feelings for Starfire.

She had not been joking, not in the slightest, back on Tamaran when she'd left the throne room; Starfire **was** her everything. She knew in her heart of hearts that nothing mattered to her more than her alien love, not even "justice" and certainly not her own life. But what was she to do when her very presence harmed her love?

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos . . ." When Starfire had apologized for being violated by Anbu, Raven was certain her heart had done its best to rip free of her own chest and beat her to death for ever allowing the Tamaranian to be put in a position of such pain and anguish.

In that moment she had wanted nothing else but to go to the girl and soothe away all of her pain, to just wrap her arms around Star and hold her until she felt nothing bu the love that Raven held for her. But the dark magus could not, because even as she was reaching out to touch her estranged lover, Raven could feel Anbu squirming inside of her and just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Though Raven was no longer considering suicide as a solution to her problems, thanks to Jasmine, that didn't make living with the burden of the monster inside of her any easier.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos . . ." The only upside Raven had yet found was that it appeared Anbu could not take control of her body at will.

If that weren't the case, then why hadn't the dark rage manifested during her stay at the hospital? The violet-haired mage surmised that it took an immense amount of energy to wrench the proverbial "wheel" of Raven's body from her grasp, perhaps like the burst of fuel expenditure that comes with starting up a car, and so Anbu was hesitant to take possession of Raven body for only a short time as it would waste precious energy to do so. More so, Raven expected that the demon was intentionally holding back because of her earlier actions, namely her attempted suicide. If her body died, Anbu was dead as well, so it was likely the monster was holding back just in case she decided to try again, that way she'd have enough energy to intercede and prevent it from happening, much as she hadn't been able to do before, thanks to the immense drain her fight with Robin and Cyborg had put on the demon magus' reserves. They were all slightly comforting thoughts, were they true.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos . . ." Still, none of that changed the fact that every moment Starfire spent with her put the alien girl's life in grave danger.

But . . . Raven was not blind, and she could easily see that every moment she was away from Starfire, especially during the current crisis, was causing the other girl undeniable torment and suffering. She had to do something, she just . . . didn't know what.

"Azarath, Metrion . . ." Raven's meditative chant was broken and she sulked.

* * *

The sun was just past its midpoint int he sky when he arrived, arms loaded up with heavy boxes. Unsurprisingly, Cyborg wasn't burdened in the slightest by their weight, thanks to his cybernetically-boosted strength. When he initially arrived in her camp, Raven did nothing more than glare, silently demanding to know how he found her. In equivalent silence, Cyborg simply sat down the containers he'd been carrying and then retrieved his communicator from his belt, causing Raven to snort in derision. 

"I would have been here sooner but the tracking signal cut off and I had to play it by ear from tehre." Raven snorted again and headed over to her drum fire to check on her attempt to brew tea using a scavenged, damaged kettle.

Before she could reach the item in question, though, Cyborg spoke again.

"Don't try the anti-social act with me, Raven, if you didn't want to be found then you would have killed that signal long before you did." That gave the dark magus pause, though she did not turn to face her visitor even when she did speak.

"Maybe I wanted you guys to come here, maybe I wanted your judgement and punishment." She spoke with a quiet, even tone, but the shaking of her hand on the kettle belied that illusion of calm.

Even noticing that fact, Cyborg only smiled easily.

"Sorry, fresh out of those." He answered lightly, actually causing Raven to look at him out of shock. "All I've got is these medical supplies and foodstuffs here," he began, patting the boxes he'd been carrying. "Those, an ear willing to listen and a mouth ready to discuss." Raven shook her head, at first almost disbelieving the words the cybernetically-enhanced young man was speaking, but eventually accepting it.

She doubted Cyborg was trying to put her off-guard so he could more easily attack her because he'd never been the type to do any of that, especially not hurting her.

"For now, though, let's take a look at those wrists." Cyborg offered when the silence between them did not break, having noticed the dressings on the girl's forearms, both of which looked as though they could really use a change.

Raven complied wordlessly, sitting down in one of the chairs by her table and offering up her wrists once Cyborg did the same. After peeling back the gauze dressing, the young man shook his head.

"Dammit, Raven." After removing the sodden stuff entirely, he started to apply a new dressing. "Why the hell did you do that to yourself?" Cyborg asked just a little bitterly as he worked.

"I had to, I had no other choice at the time." She answered almost automatically, having been expecting that question ever since Cyborg had arrives.

Even though he was in the middle of fixing up Raven's wrists, the techno hero didn't hesitate to let his anger at that answer come to the surface, manifesting itself physically with the youth slamming his hands down on the table between them.

"So what, suddenly the people that love you don't matter at all?" He growled, though Raven seemed unaffected.

"I didn't do it out of some stupid sense that none of you cared about me anymore, I did it **because** I care about all of you." Her answer only enraged the young man even further, though.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean, our love makes you want to kill yourself?" Raven shook her head.

"At the time I had no other choice, I felt like a rabic, uncontrollable dog that would end up hurting and killing everyone that I loved." Before the cybernetically-enhanced youth could say anything in response, Raven raised a hand to stop him. "I have no intention of making another go of it, though, so you can hold back on the lecture." After a moment the taller Titan simply deflated, crumpling back down in his seat and going back to dressing her wrists.

"Y'know, sometimes you really piss me off, Raven." He commented quietly, with no real malice in his tone.

Silence occupied them for a time following that, before Raven spoke again.

"Is Beast Boy alive?" She truly was nervous about bringing up that subject, considering the kind of response it could bring forth from her "guest."

Cyborg took it easily, though.

"Yeah, he's fine now, if still a little sore." Raven nodded in response and then hesitated just a moment or two before asking her next question.

"Do you bl- . . ." Cyborg did not even allow her to finish, almost instantly responding with,

"nope." When Raven looked at him, disbelieving, he simply smiled.

"Blaming you for what that 'Anbu' did would be like blaming Robin for what Slade was making him do." Raven nodded, understanding the significance of Cyborg's particular choice of a real even to liken her situation to.

Still, Raven had to ask, too much was unsure for her right then and she couldn't stand to add to that list.

"So you don't hate me?" Cyborg chuckled and reached out to tousle Raven hair.

"Nah, not at all." He made sure he had the mage's eye before speaking again, that he knew she was looking at him. "Truth be told, though, I would like it if you hurried up and got back to being the Raven I love, rather than this little scaredy-cat you are now." At first, Raven was shocked by Cyborg's admittance, but once her brain finally took the time to double-check the files she realized that it really did make sense.

"I see." She replied quietly, though with a smile on her face.

At that point, Cyborg thought it best to stand, having finished bandaging Raven up long before then, and he spoke as he did so.

"Well, I better get headed back to the tower, otherwise Robin will notice that I'm gone." Raven nodded in response, not really wanting nor needing to say anything, and watched as the cybernetically-enhanced youth headed off.

Without looking back, he called over his shoulder to her.

"Remember, Starfire stops treatin you right, don't hesitate to look me up." The magus nodded, knowing that Cyborg would somehow catch the action even though he wasn't looking.

"I'll remember." And then she watched him go before shifting her position, preparing for yet another meditative trance.

* * *

Starfire stalked through the tower. This was not the usual, floating and happy Starfire that walked the halls though, this was a wounded beat filled with a hundred conflicting emotions. Most of all, more than any other emotion, she was filled with rage. Finally, she reached her destination, Robin's room. Without any hesitation at all, the super-strong alien girl broke the door to the domocile down, seeking entry into the room and surprising its occupant with her destructive lack of patience and control. 

"Starfire . . ." Robin whispered, caught off-guard by the Tamaranian's appearance in the cloud of smoke and dust thrown up by the destruction of his door.

But the alien girl had no intention of letting him take that tone with her, that condescending tone that he used when he wanted her to think that she was being foolish and needed to be put back in her place, and was in his face in an instant.

"You lied to me, Robin!" She shouted, eyes ablaze with anger and dangerous energy. "You lied through your teeth to me and you did not care!" She moved away from the boy wonder, simply worried that she might attempt to throttle him if she remained near enough to do so while she continued.

It wasn't as though she didn't really want to throttle him, not at all at that moment. Rather, she simply did not want to let him get out of the confrontation so easily until she had at least aired her grievences.

"You did not even see fit to tell me of what had happened to Raven." She said quietly, her back turned to him.

But it became apparent that Robin had simply seen the eye of the storm a moment later when she turned to face him again, energy thrumming about her form in a dangerous pulse.

"You did not see fit to tell me that my love had tried to take her own life, that she had very nearly succeeded!" She screamed at him, only barely restraining those aggressive urges thanks to the wise distance she'd put between them.

Robin looked utterly dumbfounded, completely floored by Starfire tirade, but still he managed to speak.

"Star, I didn't want to upset y- . . ." He was cut off, though, when his words only seemed to enrage her further, causing her to scream out,

"no!" She looked straight at Robin and shook her head. "You have no right to pick and choose what I _need_ to know, and that is what this is really about." The Tamaranian advanced on the boy wonder, grabbing him up by the scruff of his suit, her strong fingers finding just enough give in the nearly skin-tight material to make such possible. "You have been trying to _handle_ me, to control me, because you do not feel I have the ability to make the right decisions." She looked dead on into Robin's eyes behind that mask as she spoke and then she dropped him.

It took the young leader a moment to shift his suit back into a configuration that would actually allow him to breathe and once he had managed that, he fully allowed himself to glare at Starfire.

"When it comes to Raven, you really don't." He fairly growled and before the Tamaranian could say a single word in response, he was right up in her face. "And making the wrong decisions in this situation will get you killed!" He shouted before finding himself violently shoved away by the alien.

"They are still **my** decisions to make, right or wrong, not yours!" Starfire yelled back. "It is my life, not yours, and I choose to tie it to my love's, for better or worse!" Robin clenched his fists at his sides.

"You're being a foolish little gir- . . ."

"No, it is you who is being foolish, Robin!" Starfire interrupted, advancing on Robin yet again. "You do not own me, nor am I a 'foolish little girl' anymore, not after all that I have seen and done." She came to stand right before him, and for the first time ever, it became truly apparent that she stood taller than he did. "I am not yours in any way, shape or form, and I wish for you to rid yourself of any shred of that delusion this instant." Her voice was firm, showing no sign of wavering at all.

The finality of her words rang against something in the boy wonder's heart and his features hardened with that touch, turning stoney.

"I'm done here." He said simply, before turning about and walking away, exiting he room through the doorway.

Starfire followed, though, and blocked his path.

"No, we are **not** done yet." Robin said nothing at all, simply moving around the Tamaranian and continuing on. "Do you not even care that you hurt me!" She screamed, charging after him when he gave no response. "That you left me all alone, that you shattered my trust in you!" She continued as she stumbled after the caped hero, crying by that point. "That you left me all alone to fight this feeling, this fear that's killing me inside!" Robin's step slowed ever so slightly as he noted that the alien girl only partially sounded as though she was talking to him.

This gave her just enough time to get around in front of the shorter boy again, and for the first moment afterwards she simply stared at him. Then she fell to her knees and truly cried.

"Doesn't she care?" She sobbed up to him, and in the face of his continued silence, she found she had to fill the void with more than just her sobs. "I can't see her, can't find her because . . . because . . ." The Tamaranian choked on the words, not wanting to actually speak them and give her fear substance.

Saying them would be admitting their reality, their truth. Even still, she said them.

"Because she is hiding from me!" Starfire cried out brokenly before very nearly collapsing fully to the floor, the only thing stopped her from doing so being Robin's arms. "Doesn't she care about me, doesn't she love me?" The alien whispered feverishly as only more tears came, causing Robin to pull her in close to him, hugging her.

"I don't know, Starfire." He whispered to her then.

But even as he did so, unvoiced words followed in his mind, 'but I damn well intend to find out.'

* * *

It was in but a moment that he was there, simply not having been so the instant before. Still, even that was enough warning for Raven to bring forth her sword, standing up from her seat beside the fire-holding steel drum.

"What do you want?" She growled, leveling her blade on Robin's chest defensively.

The boy wonder smiled and looked about the area.

"This is a . . . nice camp you have here, you've made a lot of improvements since the last time I looked, like that awning over your table." He noted, wandering back and away from Raven's sword.

He meandered about, hands raised in what acted as both a gesture of amazement and a show that he held no weapons. Of course, that "assurance" held little weight when from Robin the boy wonder, with his endless supply of gadgets and weapons secreted away in that utility belt.

"And I see Cyborg's been by with . . . gifts." The young leader continued, though his smile was getting a little strained. "Maybe we should have some kind of . . . 'hovel warming party'?" He looked around, ignoring the vein throbbing on the dark magus' forehead. "Scavenge up a few more chairs and we could invite everybody, even Beast Boy and Starfi- . . ."

"Will you stop pretending to be my friend and just get the fuck on with it, Robin." Raven snapped out, interrupting the boy wonder and stopping him in his tracks.

He held for just another heart beat before turning back to face Raven, the facade gone.

"The safety of the city, the team, and of Starfire, along with her happiness." Robin listed, enumerating each point on one gloved hand, raised so that the violet-eyed mage could see it. "These are the things that concern me when it comes to you." He kept his eyes solidly planted on the dark magus as he spoke ans he did not shrink from his gaze.

"I assume you want me to alleviate that concern?" Raven asked, though she really didn't need any confirmation.

None the less, Robin nodded.

"Then I'll just tell you right now that I have every intention of killing Anbu." The young leader of the team nodded at that, unsurprised, and folded the first three of his four raised fingers down.

"That may take care of the safety issues, but it doesn't cover Starfire's happiness." Raven looked at Robin with a truly insulted expression.

"I would sell my soul if it would make her happy."

"So you're willing to do anything for her?"

"Anything."

"And you really do want to be with her forever?"

"Yes, more than anything else in this or any other world."

"I'm sorry Raven, but I can't allow that." Like a cobra, Robin struck with speed easily comparable to that of lightning, and his birdarang sword crashed against Raven's materialized blade with the force of a mac truck.

The dark magus said nothing even as they held in the lock, instead simply pulling the hood of her cloak up. Then she knocked Robin away with a blast of force, giving her the breathing room she needed to fully prepare. She was in fighting stance just an instant before Robin came back in, swinging for a decapitating strike. She slipped under the scything slash and stabbed for Robin's body, a thrust he barely managed to dodge to the side of. Not about to scede the offense to the mage, though, he went right back in, rushing her with an elbow strike to the head that sent Raven reeling. Even so, she still magaed to block his follow-up cut and held impressively as she tried to break her.

"She's going to beat you, you're nothing but weak." Robin hised to the ashen-skinned girl, and she responded with just a smile.

That, and a knee to the groin, which knocked Robin back several shakey steps.

"You're not scaring me, because I know I'm going to beat her." She noted to the boy wonder, giving him time to catch his breath. "I have to, for Starfire's sake." Robin nodded slightly even as he hung his head while breathing shakily.

The next instant he had sent a birdarang screaming for Raven's head, one that was deflected harmlessly to the side by the barrier a slide of her hand had left in the air. Robin came in behind it with a straight thrust that Raven parried to the side and then danced around, putting her behind the boy wonder. He recovered quickly though, already turned about only two steps past her, throwing a pair of his explosive disks at her person. They missed, thanks to a quick dive to the side Raven made, and her make-shift table of scrap metal turned out to make a pretty decent birdarang shield once turned on its side.

"Is this how you're going to 'fight' Anbu, Raven?" Robin called out mockingly. "Running away and playing defensive?" He leaped, looking to clear the table and take Raven by surprise, but instead found himself to be the one caught off-guard when the heavy metal object launched at him.

He only barely managed to cut it in half with a powerful slash of his sword, but that action made his landing clumsy, almost leaving him open for Raven's sneak attack from behind. He ducked under the slash, though, and came up facing her once again, steel thrumming with Robin's anger at the trick. They traded attacks briefly, becoming twin whirlwinds of clashing steel and flashing sparks as each and every blow was parried or dodged. Finally, in an attempt to break the stalemate, Robin leapt back and threw a smoke grenade at the ground between them, filling the air with an obscuring haze that the boy wonder almost instantly vanished into.

Raven did not move even a single muscle after the bomb exploded, not until exactly one second afterwards, at which point she violently lunged to one side, body checking Robin into one of the poles holding up the canopy spread over the area her table had previously occupied. He didn't even get a chance to move, instantly finding himself pinned with Raven's sword at his neck the moment he struck the pole.

"I will do anything to be with Starfire, no matter how impossible they may say it is to do." The dark magus growled through her teeth to Robin.

After a brief moment, he nodded just slightly and Raven released him, letting her sword vanish from existence as she did so.

"Now, take me to the tower, it's time I went back." Robin nodded again, looking away.

"Yeah, Starfire's waiting for you."

* * *

One last stitch and it was done. A snowy white cloak made in the same style as Raven's was smoothed out for a final inspection by pale orange-skinned hands. It had intricate, even artful, white stitching that would hold it together through even the most severe and punishing of assaults that Raven would face. And, emblazoned on the back in a contrasting midnight black stitching was an emblem of a shooting star, stylized and beautiful. Starfire completed this cloak, a gift for Raven, and then she clutched at it and cried. 


	8. Over 1

Author's Notes: Considering an odd rise in interest for this, I figured I should finally stop being a pansy/lazy asshole and give the final word. Final Dance is very much dead, the final nail in the coffin having come years back when Teen Titans ended its run and thus I lost any further inspiration or interest for the fandom, though I'd also been having enough trouble with the story itself up to that point as it was. After that it was mostly just me being too lazy to finally say what I should have said, and I apologize for that. Rather than simply leave it at this, however, I'm going to do what I can to not completely screw those from its original run nor newer fans _completely_. What follows will be what I managed to get done of Chapter 7 and a speech from Raven I intended for Chapter 10, then my outline for what was to happen in the following chapters and then lastly the Epilogue for the story, which I actually wrote before it even began. My apologies for not being able to give a more proper end to this, but such is life.

**Chapter 7: Do What You Have To Do**

It was a perfectly normal morning, completely and utterly lacking in any noteworthy or even just unusual occurances. Still it somehow managed to be a morning that could not be missed, could not be ignored and allowed to slip by unnoticed. Starfire had been acutely aware of it since the moment she woke up, and still was even as she took care of the dishes from Cyborg's breakfast. She had taken the chore to busy herself, much as with most of what she'd done for the last two days, desperately trying to keep her mind off of problems and pains she could do nothing to ease. This turned out to be a bad thing, though, as the plate the Tamaranian had been scrubbing at shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces when Starfire looked up and found Raven standing in the doorway to the room.

No words were spoken and even the very air itself was stricken with a deathly silence as the two simply stared at one another. Clumsily, Star hopped the counter that lay between herself and the dark magus' position, afterwards continuing her approach to the other girl with halting steps. Raven's faint smile faded just a little at the blank look in Starfire's emerald on lime green eyes as she approached, a look that had not changed since the alien girl had first noticed Raven's return. The smile went away completely when the ashen-skinned girl was met with the very last thing she had been expecting, an open-handed slap across the face.

"How could you do that?" Starfire whispered, her hand still hanging in the air past Raven's face. "How could you leave me all alone?" Raven was silent, but not from the shock, that had vanished from her features only a moment after Star spoke.

Her arms slipped up and out of her cloak, coming to gently envelope the alien girl in their warmth.

"I'm sorry." It was more than just an apology for having run away that Raven whispered into Starfire's ear then, it was an apology for everything.

It was for what had happened on Tamaran, for Anbu hurting and violating her, for what Robin had put her through with his misguided attempts to protect her, for having to watch the Titans nearly torn apart _and_, finally, it was for running. It was for everything the Tamaranian had to endure in the past and just a little longer into the future. She accepted it, hugging Raven so tightly that it very nearly snapped the violet-eyed mage's spine.

"Do not . . ." She trailed off, but swallowed and pulled back just enough so she could look Raven in the eyes. "Just do not do it again."

"I won't." WIth that promise from Raven, Starfire let her head fall back to the other girl's shoulder, resting it there comfortably.

The dark magus smiled indulgently and let the Tamaranian lie as she would, after a moment reaching up to run her fingers through the flaming-red hair that she had not been able to touch in far too long. Even as Raven did so, though, Starfire noticed something on her love's wrist that made her gasp. She pulled away and grabbed at both of the violet-haired mage's arms, staring at the deep gashes in her wrists that had been revealed by the loss of her dressings during the battle with Robin.

"Oh . . . Raven . . ." She murmurred sadly, running a finger gently over one of the self-inflicted wounds and shuddering as she could almost feel the anguish that must have been consuming Raven then.

The dark magus' face fell just a little at how hard her love took the sight of her injuries, but she shook it off.

"It's alright, Star." She told the distressed alien gently, shifting Star's gaze back up to her face. "They'll heal eventually and so will all of this too." She gestured expansively, indicating all the events that had transpired. "I'm going to defeat Anbu and all of this will be right again." She kissed Starfire just before finishing by saying, "and we'll be happy." The Tamaranian could barely believe her ears, could scarcesly dare to hope that it would be true.

"Dove . . ." She whispered, those curious eyes wide with heartbreaking wonder.

Then Raven gently enfolded the crimson-haired alien in her scarred arms, pulling the girl close and all was silent and still. All too soon, though, the dark magus was forced to wrench her star fromt hat perfect cucoon of warmth and love, other considerations and obligations weighing heavily on her mind. When Starfire looked up at her with a forlorn gaze, looking for all the world like a lost little puppy, Raven couldn't help but smile.

"I'm sorry, Star, but I have to go do a few things." She gently ran the tips of her fingers over the Tamaranian's cheeks in an apologetic carress. "As much as I'd like to stay here with you all day, I can't." At her loves' words, the pale orange-skinned girl pouted like a petulant child.

"Why?" She asked, finding herself almost incensed that Fate was already conspiring to take her Dove away only minutes after the dark magus' arrival back from her self-imposed exile.

"Because I have to go apologize to Beast Boy." And, quite suddenly, it all became clear to Starfire.

"I see." She murmurred, her indignance and righteous fury flying from her like so many flocks of scared pigeons.

Raven smiled slightly still though.

"Don't worry, once I'm done I'll meet up with you in our room, okay?" Starfire nodded obediantly and Raven shook her head, before tilting the alien's gaze up from where it had fallen on the floor with a fingertip on her chin. "I promise, once I beat Anbu, we'll have all the time in the world to snuggle." The Tamaranian nodded again, too upset by the sudden loss to so easily be swayed from her moping. "Although, if you tell anyone that I used that word, I'll make sure that you never see so much as another hug." The dark magus cautioned mock sternly and Starfire couldn't help but crack a smile at that point. "That's my girl." The ashen-skinned mage purred as she reached out to run a hand through Star's hair.

The alien girl shifted into the touch, like a cat trying to increase the overall contact in a pet, but managed to keep the disappointment from showing on her face once Raven ended the contact.

"Just . . . just return soon." She told Raven, who nodded easily.

"I'll be back as soon as I possibly can be." The violet-haired mage hugged Starfire one more time before leaving her alone in the large lounge.

It felt like she was back, it truly did, and it even felt as though she was back to stay. But even still, Raven was talking about fighting Anbu and Starfire knew that everyone in the tower had the scars to show that was no easy feat. Regardless, she headed to their room, as that was the only thing she could do. After that, though, the Tamaranian girl had every intention of doing far, far more.

Her footsteps seemed to echo off of the walls as she made her way down the hall, even though the floors were carpetted. Or perhaps it was just her imagination and the only place her steps were echoing was in her own mind. Raven was walking to the medical wing to apologize to Beast Boy, to apologize for very nearly kiling him. How was she supposed to do that? What was she supposed to say to him to ease his anguish, to make up for the betrayal? Those were questions that weighed heavily on her mind as she made her way toward her destination, questions that she had no answer to, a fact that she was reminded of by every step she "heard."

She was solemn, that's simply how Raven was at times like those, solemn and silent. So it was no surprise when Cyborg came up beside the dark magus, cheer in his step.

"Hey Rae, where ya headed?" He asked jovially, smiling down at the far shorter girl.

Raven's face could not be seen, thanks to her cowl being up and casting its veil of shadow over her features, but her feelings were all to evident in her body language.

"The infirmary." Cyborg nodded in understanding, but commented only a moment after Raven spoke,

"Beast Boy will be happy to see you." Raven's expression became tinged with bitterness.

"Will he?" Her sarcastic response gave Cyborg's attempt at levity pause, turning his face serious.

"Yeah, he will be." The dark magus' gaze remained firmly set forward to the path she was walking like it was a death march.

The cybernetically-enhanced teen let the expectant silence hang between them until the shorter girl could take it no longer.

"What am I supposed to say to him, Cyborg? What am I supposed to say to make up for the agony that I caused him?" She looked upset and understandably so, even if Beast Boy greatly annoyed her sometimes he was still a person Raven had hurt and worse, a friend as well.

"It wasn't you, Raven, it was Anbu." The dark magus stopped in her march, staring up at Cyborg for a long moment.

"Does it really matter?" She asked quietly, bitterly and Cyborg looked honestly surprised at the question.

"Yeah girl, it does." The violet-haired mage nodded in silence and continued on, the once-athlete teen followed. "Just tell him you're sorry and talk to him." Cyborg shook his head sadly, a piece of body language Raven did not miss. "He's the least likely of us to get on your case."

"What does that mean?" She snapped out immediately, getting the distinct sense that something was going on that she didn't know about and her fear of the upcoming meeting shortened her temper.

Cyborg could only sigh quietly and maintain silence. Just as Raven was about to force the issue, though, he did speak up.

"You're here." The dark magus looked away from her larger cohort and ahead again to find the door to the medical bay directly before her, standing large and imposing.

She hesitated for a moment, torn between a desire to interrogate Cyborg over what he had said, as well as delay the coming confrontation, and her need to face up to the tragedy that was her fault, at least in part. A groan of pain from within that Raven's sharp ears managed to catch made the decision for her and without even a glance back toward Cyborg, Raven slipped inside the room.

Beast Boy was in terrible shape, tucked in tight atop a medical bed with a plethora of machines surrounding him on all sides, uncaring witnesses to the spectacle of his agony. His breathing was labored, if still steady and filled the room with a sound that ebbed and flowed regularly; at once comforting to Raven and yet a constant reminder of Beast Boy's state at the same time. She approached the edge of the bed cautiously, conscious of the fact that Beast Boy's eyes were closed, which indicated he was probably sleeping. Regardless of the silence of her approach, Beast Boy's eyes still opened the moment she came up to the side of his bed.

"Raven." He wheezed, the sound overpowering any undertones to his voice that may have told Raven whether it was a greeting or a curse.

When he turned his head to look directly at her, though, Raven knew exactly what it had been, the short and green teen's crooked smile openly betraying that.

"You look terrible." Raven murmurred, finding it quite hard to take her eyes from the copious wrappings of bandages around Beast Boy's mid-section.

Somehow his smile held.

"You're not lookin' so hot yourself." His gaze slid over the wounds in Raven's wrists and caused him to wince in more than just physical pain.

The dark magus also did not miss that bit of body language.

"I thought I'd killed you, I couldn't bear it."

-

**Chapter 10: Try, Try, Try**

"I've been thinking and more than anything else, I know that I want to spend my life with you, whatever that may be. I looked back and I saw all the bad things, the little and the big, all the terrible things that happened to you and I began to wonder again if you would have had to suffer any of that were it not for us, were it not for me. I wondered if you might not really have been better off without me . . . But then I thought of the good things, the things that had made us smile and warmed our hearts, the closeness and intimacy that made it feel as though we were never alone, the nights full of such passion and desire . . . I knew it couldn't be so, we can't be better of without each other; you couldn't be better off without me. It's life, it's the bad and the good together, it's out relationship; the ups can only be there because there are downs, they're an inseparable pair. More importantly, though, is the future. Our future together that I want to spend with you because of who you are. You're my shooting star, my wish for a brighter tomorrow and a better future, you're the light to my shadow. Just seeing you makes me want to be better than I am, to be stronger so I can protect that carefree smile and joy of yours that make my heart beat so fast. To be a kinder and more gentle woman that can ease your pains and fill your heart with contentment. To be a good enough person to deserve the wonderful gift to the world that you are. I want to fight to make the world you see with those innocent eyes of yours, a world so much more loving and kind, a reality. I want to be with you as I promised, as betrothed, so that I might touch your heart every day and make it sing out to the world, so I can kiss your sweet lips and hold your body every single day and make you swoon. I want to be with you forever, Starfire, so I can share my love with you and see you smile."


	9. Over 2

Chapter 7:

-Raven returns to the tower, and is almost instantly tackled by Starfire, but first goes to beg for Beast Boy's forgiveness.

-As they pass in the hall, Raven thanks Cyborg for his help.  
-Speaking with Beast Boy, Raven finds his forgiveness for her forced actions and also gains further resolve in her plans.

-After carefully considering all options before her, Raven concludes that there is no choice, and goes to Robin to warn him that she would face Anbu.

-Raven prepares to go in, and is presented with the gift Star made for her, and she reciprocates by giving Starfire her old cloak.

-An arguement ensues between the two lovers, with Starfire wanting to follow Raven in and fight with her, and Raven wanting Star to go and wait with the boys on the other side of the tower.

-Forced to a compromise, Starfire is allowed to stay with Raven's body but not to come in with her.

-After a final, touching moment, Raven enters, and Anbu is waiting for her.

Chapter 8:

-The fight begins viciously, with no sand-bagging this time, and injuries, though minor, are already commonplace.

-Starfire grows worried as she does her best to bandage up Raven, before she is blown back by a globe of force that sprang up around Raven's body.  
-Anbu laughs maniacally before doing something strange, which makes no sense to Raven and they continue to fight as things look bad.  
-Quite suddenly, Starfire appears, explaining as they fight that Raven had told Star the location of her meditation mirror months ago, and after a brief arguement, they resolve to fight together.

-Battling together, they gain the upper hand on Anbu, but Starfire's optimism is crushed when Anbu transforms.

-After the transformed Anbu soundly thrashes Raven and Starfire, though Raven retaliates with surprising force, and they are thrown away from one another, and realizing this, they try to crawl back together.

-They clasp hands, just as Anbu is about to slaughter, and a miracle of sorts occurs.

-The combined Starfire and Raven manage to defeat Anbu, just barely, but even as she fades, she reveals the truth to Raven, that she is a part of her very soul, and will never truly be gone.

-Saddened, Raven and Starfire return to the real world, and inform the rest of the team that everyone is safe, for the time being.

-Raven swears to find a way to stop Anbu permanently, and goes to her room to comb through her magic tomes in search of an answer.

Chapter 9:

-Starfire comes into Raven's room after letting her search alone for two days.

-They talk for a short period of almost small talk, but then Starfire comes to the heart of the matter.

-She pleads with Raven to promise that she won't leave, and even still wants "proof" that she'll stay.

-Raven proposes to Star, essentially, and love is made, as Raven's promise and proof.

-Afterwards, Raven quietly tucks Starfire in, and then goes to one of the book stacks separate from the others, and picks up one tome in particular (use Latin for the name, something about souls).

Chapter 10:

-Raven talks to Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Robin (separately), about what exactly she should do, or even could do.

-Raven reveals the facts to Starfire, as she is discovered by her making preparations for some kind of ritual, that there's only one possibility to get rid of Anbu, but that it could also take Raven's part of the soul too. Starfire, unable to take the strain, flees.

-Raven waits for Starfire in the park where the wedding had occurred, despite a heavy rain. Starfire eventually appears and they discuss what they can do, and finally, decide to stay together, to face Anbu whenever she appears, simply because they love each other that much.

Chapter 8: Anything Right - P.O.D.  
Chapter 9: Here's to the Night - Eve 6  
Chapter 10: Try Try Try - Smashing Pumpkins  
Epilogue: Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo'le


	10. Over 3

**Epilogue**

**Somewhere Over the Rainbow**

A small sandbox in a quiet little children's park held a young girl, not much older than six years of age. She was an odd child, with a rather ruddy, yet untanned, skin tone, wearing a dainty blue and white sun dress and playing in the sand. Her mid-length hair, naturally swept back at the brow but otherwise hanging unbound, was a rich violet color, strangely streaked with highlights of vibrant crimson, and her large, childish eyes were even more peculiar. Her irises were colored a dark, emerald green, not incredibly unusual, but in addition to that, her cornea showed through as a color very similar to the sky's just before a storm struck, that light and yet dark blue ever so faintly tinged with purple.

She was building a sand castle, making towers from sand packed in a bucket and then overturned flat on the ground, and walls simply by piling the sand high and then packing it thinner. When she was finished, she smiled proudly as she looked down upon her feat of engineering and skill. That is, until the whole of it exploded in a spray, leaving behind nothing more than a mound of sand and a large, shoe-covered foot buried in it. With a grunt, the owner of the foot, a ten year old with a homely face, withdrew it from the mound.

"Whoops, _sorry_ about that." He said, insincerely, before turning about and walking away without even letting the girl say anything.

But, even as she kneeled unmoving before the remains of her creation, the air around her began to waver, slowly filling with a nimbus of neon purple light. The color shifted as the child's hands clenched tightly in the sand beneath her, flashing into a burning red color that almost seemed to ignite the air around her with a blazing fury. Other colors, softer, brighter colors, flickered through its depths, but they were only shadows within the mist, and in only a few moments the sand around the girl began to burn into clear, crystalline glass.

And, a short distance back from the spectacle lay a bench, on which sat two people. The first, a slightly shorter than average woman, had deep violet hair that was cut in an odd style, hanging down to shoulder length at the farthest forward bangs, and then progressively higher as it went toward the back of her head, forming an almost perfect parabolic curve with the apex just above her neck's end. She had soft-grey skin and very tired, violet eyes, more so than usual at this point, and a number of lines in her plain face that only accentuated the sense of jaded pessimism that she radiated. Beside her was another woman, a tall, striking female with vivid crimson hair that hung far below where her back leaned against the bench top. Her odd eyes were the same as the child's, though with lime green cornea rather than stormy blue, which gazed about with an inner wisdom, and yet great, youthful energy.

"I knew it, I've cursed our daughter with my demon." The weary woman said guiltily, looking down to the ground and away from her glowing child.

The crimson-haired woman looked over at her spouse, staring at her with those knowing eyes, and pronounced simply,

"it does not matter." The other's head came back up, and she met the woman's powerful gaze unflinchingly.

"Of course it matters, she'll have to go through the same things I did, the same things we did!" For a moment, the violet-haired woman looked away, appearing even more aged and worn as her eyes grew distant. "I'm still having nightmares about those days . . ." She murmured quietly, regret staining her soft tone deeply.

Her head turned to look at the other woman once again, guided by the gentle touch of one orange-skinned finger on her chin.

"You really should forgive yourself, Dove, those were not your fault, and they are in the past now." Their lips met in a soft, loving kiss that lasted for only a moment, and then it was broken, and Starfire stood. "Besides, she will not." She said, before slowly and gracefully making her way over to the child, heedless of the blazing aura surrounded her.

Ignoring the burning sensation that passed over her skin as she came closer, she crouched beside the girl and drew her into a compassionate, motherly embrace.

"It is all right, Aurora, every thing is fine, Mommy Star is here, and that horrible child is not coming back." She whispered, softly stroking her little girl's hair in a soothing manner.

And, after a few moments of tender words and subdued rocking in her mother's arms, Aurora's dangerous, demonic presence faded, and then vanished completely. With those all-knowing eyes of hers, Starfire looked to her lover, still seated on the park bench, and smiled.

"She will not because she will have what you did not, the parents you never had, the home you never knew, and the love you never felt as a child." Raven gaped openly, honestly surprised by Starfire's actions, and the Tamaranian held her smile as she looked down at the child in her arms. "Aurora, sweety, call Mommy Rae over, and then we can help you build your sand castle again." Star whispered to the girl, whose face lit up with joy at the prospect.

"Mommy Rae, Mommy Rae, come help Mommy Star and me make my sand castle again!" The dark magus' gape broke into a sardonic, self-mocking smile, and with an ineffectual sigh and a shake of her head, she stood and came over to the pair, crouching down and beginning to fill a bucket with sand, carefully sorting out the shards of crude glass as she did so.

But she stopped when she felt a pair of small, almost tiny arms encircle her neck.

"I love you, Mommy Rae." Aurora said, a tight squeeze of her little arms emphasizing her words.

"I love you too, sweety, more than anything else in the world . . ." Raven whispered in response, as she turned about and slipped her arms around her daughter as well, lacing her fingers with Starfire's as they both hugged their child tightly between them.

And, as they crouched in a sandbox, in a quiet little children's park, they were surrounded by a brilliant, white radiance, which transformed itself into the shape of a dove, lovingly enfolding all three in its wings.

Author's Notes: And there you have the end I'd planned for the series. If you still actually give two shits about anything I do, I suggest you check me out on RyuujinBlue at deviantArt or Psychotypist at FictionPress, as I'm working on a novel. Most likely once it's done I'll either briefly post up the completed work for some quick critique or at least a teaser, so it will let you know when it's out and I'm looking to have it published. Whatever else, I hope you at least enjoyed the story at some point.


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